Deere says its robo-tractors are ready to till the fields



Tue, January 4, 2022
By Joseph White

DETROIT (Reuters) - John Deere & Co said on Tuesday it will start commercial delivery this year of technology that enables a tractor to till a field without an operator in the cab, a first for the top North American tractor manufacturer after years of effort to automate farm work.

Deere plans a low-volume launch this year delivering systems for 12 to 20 machines, and then scaling up, Jahmy Hindman, Deere's chief technology officer, told Reuters. The company is weighing whether to sell the technology, lease it, or offer it to farmers in a subscription package that could allow for upgrades as hardware and software evolve, he said.

The cameras and computers for automated tilling can be installed on an existing tractor and tiller machine in a day, Hindman said.

Deere and other equipment makers such as Caterpillar have invested heavily in technology to automate off-highway vehicles such as farm tractors and mining machines. In the farm sector, finding workers to operate tractors is a chronic problem made more acute by the pandemic.

For the farm equipment industry, Deere's commercial launch is a significant step in a journey that has been underway for nearly two decades, beginning with the use of satellite positioning and later hands-free operation with a driver still in the cab. Deere has been testing fully autonomous tractors for three to four years, Hindman said.

While automated tractors do not have to contend with pedestrians, the chaos of urban traffic or highway safety regulations, Hindman said self-driving tractors do need to be able to navigate accurately, avoid obstacles and precisely control equipment such as a tiller.

Deere's initial automated tractors will use stereo cameras in the front and rear, and can send images of what the cameras see via a smartphone app to a farmer or equipment operator. The operator can take the tractor to a field, swipe the smartphone screen and the machine will start on a programmed path.

The tractor's computerized vision system will monitor the tiller, which will have mirrors installed on the shanks that churn plant stubble into the ground. If one of the shanks hits a rock and gets tipped up, the change in the reflection from the mirror will be visible to a remote operator.

Deere is working on automating other farm operations, with spraying likely the next target for automation, Hindman said.

(Reporting By Joe White; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Deere unveils autonomous tractor to transform agriculture



Joann Muller
Tue, January 4, 2022

Deere & Company introduced the world's first autonomous tractor Tuesday, a technology breakthrough that could help farmers cope with a worsening skilled labor shortage.

Why it matters: Farmers are getting older — 55 years old on average — and with more than 80% of the U.S. population residing in urban areas, there aren't enough laborers to do the work or operate machinery.

So robots are the new farmhands as growers try to boost productivity to keep up with soaring global demand for food, biofuels and other agricultural products.

Driving the news: The giant green and yellow machine, which debuted at CES, the annual consumer electronic show in Las Vegas, represents a new era in agriculture.

"The last time agriculture was on the precipice of this much change was when we were on the cusp of replacing the horse and plow," Deere Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman tells Axios.

For the first time, a farm tool can do the work without a human or animal providing the labor.

While Deere has had self-guided tractors since 1999, operators have remained in the cab. Now, its tractors can operate autonomously, 24 hours a day.

All the farmer has to do is transport the machine to a field and configure it for autonomous operation. Using a phone or tablet, the farmer then swipes left to right on Deere's app to start the machine.

The farmer can leave the field to focus on other tasks while monitoring the machine's status on a mobile device.

How it works: Deere’s 8R tractor is outfitted with a GPS guidance system and new advanced technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

Six pairs of stereo cameras provide a 360-degree view around the machine.

Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network at a rate of 3 frames per second to determine if an obstacle is detected and whether the machine should keep moving or stop.

The tractor continuously checks its position relative to a so-called "geofence," to make sure it's operating where it is supposed to, within an inch of accuracy.

Data collected by the tractor can also help farmers make better strategic decisions in the future.

The bottom line: Deere has been adding automation to its farm machinery for 20 years, enabling precision planting, for example, and the spraying of fertilizer or pesticides on individual plants.

With its fully autonomous tractor, available later this year, farmers can now leave chores like tilling the soil to the machine.

The hot air surrounding cows and methane


Carlton Fletcher, The Albany Herald, Ga.
Tue, January 4, 2022

Jan. 4—TIFTON — It is not difficult to find somebody talking about methane these days. Simply turn on the TV, open your computers to your news affiliate of choice or log into any social media platform.

Over and over, we have been told that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it contributes to global warming, and since ruminants (i.e., cattle) produce methane, they are destroying the world.

I am here to tell you that all of that is true, other than the last bit about cows destroying the world. On the contrary, cattle have a role in actually cooling the Earth's atmosphere.

It is true that cattle produce methane — the average beef cow can produce between 0.1 to 0.2 pounds of methane every day. This is a natural process that allows the animal to control the pH of their rumen by removing hydrogen, an element that impacts acidity.

Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and we do need to do our part as humans to try to reduce the amount of methane produced. However, unlike carbon dioxide (CO2), which is in the atmosphere for approximately 1,000 years, methane has an atmospheric lifespan of only 10 years, after which methane is converted to CO2.

The other element that makes up methane is carbon. Let's consider where this carbon is coming from — the cow's diet, whether that be forage, supplement or a total mixed ration. For the most part, our cattle are consuming plants, either as forage, grain or byproducts.

Now, let's think back to fifth-grade science class and remember how plants grow.

Through a process called photosynthesis, plants pull CO2 from the atmosphere and peel off the oxygen (O2), using the carbon to produce energy for plant growth. This means that the methane produced from the rumen of cattle is formed from CO2 that could have previously been methane from the rumen of a grazing beef cow. This is the cycle of biogenic methane — methane that is produced by a living organism.

If we consider that the methane produced from the U.S. beef herd is biogenic and that this carbon is consistently being recycled through the system via grasslands and grain, the story we should be hearing is that cattle are not actually a negative source of greenhouse gases, but instead can actually act as source of carbon sequestration and short-term global cooling.

Today, if the global cattle herd does not grow in number of head, the amount of carbon released (i.e., methane) and sequestered (i.e., CO2 taken into soils and plants) is in balance. This is great news. What is even better news is that if we utilize novel technologies, such as feed additives, we have the opportunity to release less methane, which would lead to short-term cooling.

As producers, many may ask the obvious question, "If we are currently not significantly contributing to global warming with our cows, why would I want to spend more money to reduce methane?"

The answer to that is efficiency. When cattle produce methane, they do that at a cost and that cost is energy. Approximately 2 to 12% of the energy consumed by cattle is lost as methane, with cattle consuming forage-based diets producing three to four times more methane than their grain-fed counterparts. Therefore, by mitigating the release of methane from ruminants, the opportunity arises for that carbon to go into meat, milk or fiber production.

It is important for us to consider these aspects of methane production. It is easy for many of us to scoff every time we hear someone speak about the methane produced by cattle, but maybe it is time for us to consider that the story we need to be telling is that we have the ability to cool the planet with cattle while saving on our feed bills.

IVORY TOWER ARYAN SUPREMACIST

US is 'better off with fewer Asians, less Asian immigration,' says tenured UPenn professor



Sarah Yukiko
Tue, January 4, 2022, 11:14 AM·3 min read

University of Pennsylvania (Penn) law professor and second-generation immigrant Amy Wax made anti-Asian and xenophobic remarks following a conversation with fellow Ivy League professor Glenn Loury on his podcast “The Glenn Show” (“TGS”).

Anti-Asian remarks

After Wax appeared on “TGS,” Loury shared a response from one of his listeners, George Lee, on Substack. “I usually agree with Amy, but her views on immigration (which she had stated earlier elsewhere) disturbed me,” Lee wrote. “Again, no one is entitled to immigration. But do we want to do without, to give a dramatic example, key contributors to the Manhattan Project, like Edward Teller and John von Neumann, when, as it turned out, German physicist Werner Heisenberg was just one calculation error away from a Nazi atomic bomb? Amy herself did come from an immigrant Jewish family.”

Wax addressed Lee’s response by repeating Asian stereotypes and writing that Asians possess a “desire to please the elite, single-minded focus on self-advancement, conformity and obsequiousness.” She claimed that Lee is “is too optimistic about the influence of Asians and Asian immigrants on our polity and culture.”

She also wrote about Asians’ supposed “lack of deep post-Enlightenment conviction,” “lack of thoughtful and audacious individualism” and “indifference to liberty.”

She concluded her response by saying, “As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration. There needs to be more focus on people who are already here.”

Social media outrage

Wax’s response drew outrage on social media, where many pointed out that she had previously used white supremacist rhetoric to promote anti-Black sentiment.

“What the sh*t in the f*ck,” blogger Angry Asian Man tweeted.

“Ah, it’s the yellow peril all over again,” one user wrote.

“Can’t believe remarks even exists [sic] in 2021 from a professor whom herself was a second generation immigrant,” another user said.

Penn Law School dean’s response

Dean of Penn’s Carey Law School, Theodore Ruger, released a statement on Jan. 3 both condemning Wax’s remarks and reaffirming her status as a tenured professor.

“Wax’s recent comments inflict harm by perpetuating stereotypes and placing differential burdens on Asian students, faculty, and staff to carry the weight of this vitriol and bias,” he wrote. “Yet Wax makes these statements as a faculty member with tenure.”

Ruger went on to defend the importance of tenure, stating: “The same academic freedom principles that permit current scholars to engage in critical and overdue analysis of this nation’s historical and structural discrimination – despite zealous efforts to censor such speech by some – also apply to faculty like Wax who voice xenophobic and white supremacist views.”

Wax, a second-generation immigrant whose parents originally come from Eastern Europe, has previously made overtly white supremacist remarks, and in 2019, she was prohibited from teaching core curriculum classes at Penn Law School. Based on Ruger’s recent statement, it is unclear whether or not she will face additional repercussions.

Penn Law professor said that the US is 'better off with fewer Asians' because they support Democrats


DeArbea Walker
Tue, January 4, 2022

University students walking on pedestrian road , near University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

Stock Photo/Getty Images


A Penn professor said the US would be better off with less Asian immigration.

Amy Wax said the US should limit Asian immigration because of their support for Democrats.

Wax is now facing backlash for her comments.

A University of Pennsylvania law professor is facing backlash after she said the United States would be "better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration."

In a letter obtained by DailyMail.com, Amy Wax doubled down on racist comments she made on The Glenn Show in December, saying that the US should be concerned about the number of Asian people immigrating to the US because they vote for Democrats.

"Maybe it's just that Democrats love open borders and Asians want more Asians here," The Penn Law professor wrote, according to DailyMail.com. "But as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration."


During a December interview on The Glenn Show, Wax and host Glenn Loury engaged in a discussion about US immigration when the conversation turned toward Asian immigration.

"It's just harder to assimilate those people or to have confidence that our way of life will continue if we bring a lot of people in who are not familiar with it," Wax said. "These are not original ideas on the [political] right."

Wax went on to say that the US should be concerned about South Asian elites migrating to the US and its impact on American culture.

"[We] have to distinguish mass-immigration, which we're getting from the Hispanics, south of the border, which I think poses different questions and challenges from the Asian elites that we're getting," she said. "It doesn't mean that the influx of Asian elites is unproblematic. I actually think it's problematic... I think it's because there's this… danger of the dominance of an Asian elite in this country."

Wax is now facing backlash for her comments.

Penn Law School Dean Theodore Ruger said Wax's comments were "anti-intellectual" in a statement on Monday, calling them "xenophobic and white supremacist views."

"Like all racist generalizations, Wax's recent comments inflict harm by perpetuating stereotypes and placing differential burdens on Asian students, faculty, and staff to carry the weight of this vitriol and bias," he said.

"As we have previously emphasized, Wax's views are diametrically opposed to the policies and ethos of this institution," Ruger added. "They serve as a persistent and tangible reminder that racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not theoretical abstractions but are real and insidious beliefs in this country and in our building. This reality sharpens and deepens our commitment to support our community as we continue to work to advance equity and inclusion."

Former President Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump also criticized Wax's comments.

"It helps explain the situation this country finds itself in that an Ivy League university allows the morally and intellectually bankrupt racist #AmyWax teach the next generation of American lawyers," she said on Twitter. "There should be consequences for this kind of hateful rhetoric @pennlaw."

Wax has previously faced similar backlash for her views on the US' need to favor white over non-white people in the immigration system.

"Let us be candid: Europe and the First World, to which the United States belongs, remains mostly white for now. And the Third World, although mixed, contains a lot of non-white people," she said at the inaugural National Conservatism conference 2019, according to Vox. "Embracing cultural distance nationalism means in effect taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites."

Penn Law rebukes professor who said U.S. would be 'better off with fewer Asians'



Brahmjot Kaur
Tue, January 4, 2022

The dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School criticized comments by a professor at the school as "thoroughly anti-intellectual and racist" for suggesting that the United States is “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

The dean, Theodore Rugers, was responding to comments made by Amy Wax, a white law professor, in an interview last month.

“Once again, Amy Wax has, through her thoroughly anti-intellectual and racist comments denigrating Asian immigrants, underscored a fundamental tension around harmful speech at American universities,” Rugers wrote in a statement.


“Like all racist generalizations, Wax’s recent comments inflict harm by perpetuating stereotypes and placing differential burdens on Asian students, faculty, and staff to carry the weight of this vitriol and bias.”

No punishment has been announced.

During a Dec. 20 interview on journalist Glenn Loury’s web show, Bloggingheads.tv, Wax criticized Asian immigration to the United States, warning of the “danger of the dominance of an Asian elite in this country.”

“If you go into medical schools, you’ll see that Indians, South Asians are now rising stars. In medicine, they’re sort of the new Jews, I guess, but these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are poisoning the scientific establishment and the medical establishment now,” said Wax, who is Jewish.

Wax did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Loury, a professor of social sciences at Brown University, attempted to defend Asian Americans by invoking the model minority myth. “What would be wrong with having a lot of Chinese or Indian or Korean engineers, physicians, computer scientists, and whatnot, running around here creating value, enlivening the society?” he said.

Wax also said Asians in the U.S. should be more thankful. “Why should someone who emigrated from India, has taken advantage of everything our society has to offer, who is leading the good life, who’s part of the elite — why shouldn’t that person be objectively grateful? And, you know, recognize overtly all the wonderful things about our country?” she said.

On Sunday Loury published an email he received from a listener who was critical of Wax’s comments. He also allowed Wax to respond to the listener.

“Maybe it’s just that Democrats love open borders, and Asians want more Asians here,” she wrote. “Perhaps they (and especially their distaff element) are just mesmerized by the feel-good cult of ‘diversity.’ I don’t know the answer. But as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

Wax’s comments quickly went viral on Twitter.

It’s not Wax’s first time facing backlash over racist or discriminatory remarks. In 2006, faculty at Penn Law rebuked her public advocacy against same-sex marriage. In a 2017 interview on the Glenn Show, Wax said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely in the top half.” (Ruger denied that this was true and Wax was barred from teaching first-year law courses.)

And in 2019, students at Penn Law called for Wax’s termination after she was caught on camera saying the United States “will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites,” the Pennsylvania Capitol-Star reported.

"They [Wax’s views] serve as a persistent and tangible reminder that racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not theoretical abstractions but are real and insidious beliefs in this country and in our building. This reality sharpens and deepens our commitment to support our community as we continue to work to advance equity and inclusion,” Ruger said in this week’s statement.

ORWELLIAN POSTMODERN STALINISM
Hong Kong's Lam: Media closures unrelated to press freedom



 Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam listens to reporters' questions during a news conference in Hong Kong, Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021. Lam on Tuesday said that the recent closure of two media outlets in the city cannot be associated with the state of press freedom in Hong Kong as the decisions were made by the outlets themselves. Her comments came almost a week after authorities arrested seven people associated with pro-democracy online news outlet Stand News over sedition, with the outlet announcing that it would cease operations. Days later, another online site Citizen News also said it would stop operating. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

ZEN SOO
Mon, January 3, 2022

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday said the recent closure of two media outlets in the city does not indicate a decline in press freedom as the decisions were made by the outlets themselves.

Her comments came almost a week after authorities arrested seven people associated with pro-democracy online news site Stand News for alleged sedition, with the outlet then announcing it would cease operations. Days later, another online site, Citizen News, also said it would stop operating.

“For none of the media outlets, we did not do anything. They were never approached by law enforcement agencies,” Lam said during a news conference Tuesday.

“But if they decided to cease operation out of their own concerns, I think this is nothing out of the ordinary." She added that Hong Kong authorities do "not seek to crack down on press freedom.”

Lam said the government follows the rule of law in Hong Kong, and that when she first assumed office, she opened up government news conferences to online sites and met with the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

In response to charges that the closure of the online media indicates the “extinction” of press freedom in Hong Kong, Lam said she “cannot accept that sort of allegations.”

“Nothing is more important than the rule of law,” she said. She also said that as long as news outlets do not engage in illegal acts, they can continue to report news in Hong Kong.

She said there was an increase of 5.4% in local news outlets registered in the city, and a jump of 9.4% for overseas outlets since a sweeping National Security Law was enacted in the city in June 2020.

“So you cannot say that the freedom of press is eroded due to the closing of the two media outlets,” Lam said.

Since the security law came into effect, over a hundred people have been arrested, including many pro-democracy activists and some journalists who previously worked for the now-defunct Apple Daily and Stand News.

On Tuesday, a pro-democracy activist and key member of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, Chow Hang-tung, was sentenced to 15 months in prison after being convicted of inciting people to join a banned vigil last year commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

She was told to serve an additional 10 months of top of a current 12-month sentence she is serving for her role in the vigil in 2020, which was also banned.

Separately, Lam said the city will tighten vaccine requirements to cover not only entertainment venues but also places such as libraries, schools and museums.

The requirement will be tightened from Feb. 24, and will require those entering such venues to have at least one vaccine dose against COVID-19.

The expansion of the vaccine mandate comes days after Hong Kong reported its first omicron COVID-19 cluster, linked to several Cathay Pacific crew members who broke isolation rules and visited dining spots and bars across the city before later testing positive for omicron.

The city was largely able to keep the delta variant from causing local outbreaks through strict quarantine rules. Hong Kong currently designates all countries with local omicron outbreaks as “high-risk” countries, requiring arrivals from those countries to serve a 21-day quarantine.

Hong Kong leader says she cannot accept claims press freedom faces 'extinction'


FILE PHOTO: Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks at a news conference in Beijin

Mon, January 3, 2022

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday she could not accept suggestions that press freedom in the city faces "extinction", just days after police raided an online media outlet and arrested seven people including senior editors.

Lam was speaking at a weekly news conference as another independent online outlet, Citizen News, ceased operations in the face of what it described as a "deteriorating" media environment in the Chinese-ruled former British colony.

"This morning I read news about, because of the closure of online medium, press freedom in Hong Kong faces extinction ... I just cannot accept that sort of allegations," Lam said, adding that nothing was more important than rule of law.


Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise that wide-ranging individual rights, including a free press, would be protected. But rights groups and some Western governments say freedoms have been eroded, in particular since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020.

The government has repeatedly denied targeting the media and curbing freedoms in the global financial hub. China says rights advocacy is being used as an attempt to disrupt Hong Kong's progress after the national security law restored stability.

Officers raided the office of the Stand News online publication last week, froze its assets and arrested seven current and former senior editors and former board members. Two editors have been charged with sedition.

Lam has hit back at foreign governments demanding the release of the seven, saying such a move would be against the former British colony's rule of law.

The police operation against Stand News came a day after Hong Kong prosecutors laid an additional charge of sedition against jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai, 74, of the now-shuttered, pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

On Monday, online publication Citizen News said its decision to cease operations from Tuesday was triggered by the closure and arrests at Stand News and to ensure the safety of its staff.

(Reporting By Edmond Ng and Donny Kwok, Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by)

USA

Established pension plans aren’t dying – they’re thriving, one study says

Alessandra Malito - Monday, JAN 3,2022

Corporate pension plans are not as common as they were decades ago, but some of the largest ones that still exist “improved significantly” in 2021, according to a new analysis.

Investment returns and rising interest rates drove funding status for the largest corporate defined-benefit pension plans to their highest levels since before the financial crisis in 2008, consulting firm Willis Towers Watson found. The researchers analyzed 361 of the Fortune 1000 companies. The Fortune 1000 list includes the U.S. companies with the highest revenue that year.

Pension plan assets equaled $1.67 trillion at the end of 2021, with an average 8.9% investment return, according to the analysis. The aggregate funding status for these companies’ pension plans was 96%, up 8 percentage points in 2021, and up from 77% in 2008. In 2007, the aggregate funding level was 107% – the last year these plans had been fully funded. Ideally, plans would always be fully funded.

“Since 2008, many sponsors have better positioned their plans relative to market risk, primarily through changes in investment allocation and settlement activity,” Joseph Gamzon, managing director of retirement at Willis Towers Watson, said in a statement.

See: Why are pension funds investing in hedge funds?

The funding deficit also diminished last year, Willis Towers Watson found. The deficit is now expected to have been $63 billion by the end of 2021, compared to $232 billion at the end of 2020.

Public pensions are also doing much better in recent years, another study found. The estimated aggregate level of funding for public pensions was 74.7% in 2021, up from 72.8% in 2020, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Lack of funding in a pension plan can spell trouble for workers, many of whom expect to rely on this money in their old age. There are safeguards to prevent catastrophes if a company can’t continue to support the retirement plan, however. When a corporation can no longer foot the bill for pensions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation can fund a portion of the benefit promised to workers.

Foxconn India plant unlikely to reopen until Jan 7, says government official


Private security guards stand at the entrance of a closed plant of Foxconn India, near Chennai

Mon, January 3, 2022, 
By Sudarshan Varadhan

CHENNAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc supplier Foxconn is unlikely to reopen its shuttered iPhone manufacturing facility in southern India until January 7, a senior government official familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Foxconn plant, located in the state of Tamil Nadu, was closed on Dec. 18, following protests over 250 of its workers being treated for food poisoning. Apple has since placed the factory on probation after discovering that some dormitories and dining rooms did not meet required standards.

The company, officially known as Hon Hai Precision, had told the Tamil Nadu state government it was working to address Apple's concerns over workers' living conditions, the official said.

"Foxconn is still working with Apple to ensure compliance, which they expect to take up to two days. Bringing back workers could also more than a day," the official said, adding that the state government had cleared restarting the plant for production.

Foxconn and Apple officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Officials at two staffing agencies contracted by Foxconn to hire workers said the company had not communicated to them when production at the factory will resume.

Two workers at the factory said neither Foxconn, nor the staffing contractors had communicated the date of reopening.

The government official declined to be named as talks between the government and Foxconn were private. The staffing agency officials and workers declined to be named as they are not authorized to talk to the media.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Patients line up for Louisiana's first smokable medical marijuana; balk at prices
Greg Hilburn, Lafayette Daily Advertiser
Tue, January 4, 2022

Photos of seedlings from the first crop of medical marijuana being grown in Louisiana.

Medical marijuana patients packed Louisiana's nine cannabis pharmacies on Monday, the first day of the expansion of the state's program to include the raw, smokable form of the medicine as an option, though many complained about the cost of the raw buds.

Until Monday Louisiana's only two legal growers — LSU AgCenter, Southern AgCenter and their private partners — could only produce the medicine in processed form like tinctures and edible gummies.

"It's an exciting day; it feels like the first day again from August 2019 when the first products became available," said John Davis of Good Day Farms, LSU AgCenter's private partner and grower.

There were some long lines and waits at the nine pharmacies across the state, according to media reports.

More: Louisiana lawmakers chide ag commissioner for slow pace of medical marijuana expansion

Business was brisk at Delta MedMar, northeastern Louisiana's cannabis pharmacy in West Monroe, though patients there were disappointed by the cost of the flower product.

"They said it would be cheaper, but it's not," said Corbet King, who drove an hour from Wisner and said the medicine treats both his pain from back and neck injuries suffered in a car wreck and his bipolar disorder.

"I've been waiting on the flower option," King said. "But this more than double the street price (of illegal weed)."

Delta MedMar was charging between $440 and $480 an ounce, according to a price sheet provided to USA Today Network by two patients. One ounce is generally enough for 84 pre-rolled cigarettes.

More: Waitr: Marijuana delivery plan moves forward, rebranding as ASAP | Business Buzz

The cost for one-eighth of an ounce of the flower product sold by the state's nine, regional monopoly pharmacies ranged from $35 in Lake Charles to $60 in West Monroe to $80 in New Orleans, according to various reports.

When the Louisiana Legislature voted last year to expand the program to include the raw product as an option for patients, one of the arguments was that it would be more affordable for patients because it bypasses processing.

Inhaling the medicine provides patients with faster relief for their medical conditions — 5 to 10 minutes compared to as much as an hour for ingestable forms like gummies.

Though neither Good Day Farms nor Ilera Holistic Healthcare has provided USA Today Network with their wholesale prices, Davis said the growers "are very focused on making sure the wholesale pricing is consistent with other states even though we aren't yet a mature market."

Davis said research shows if the retail price isn't within 20% of the illegal market, most people will continue to buy from the illegal market.

But the wholesale growers have no control over retail pricing by the pharmacies and Louisiana's medical cannabis law places no price restraints on the products.

"I feel like we were lied to," King said.

Greg Morrison, one of the owners of Delta MedMar, said retail pricing will likely drop as the market matures.

"When there are more patients and more products prices are going to be more affordable," Morrison said.

Republican state Rep. Tanner Magee of Houma, whose legislation expanded the program to include the flower product, said he was concerned about early pricing reports but wanted more information.

"It's the first day, but I'm going to monitor it and see if there needs to be adjustments moving forward," said Magee, who is also the No. 2 leader in the House as speaker pro-tem. "One of the primary reasons to expand the options in the program was to make the medicine more affordable and accessible."

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana's first smokable medical cannabis sold; patients balk at cost

Oldest Lion in Kenya Captured in Stunning Photos

Professional wildlife photographer Leighton Lum was shooting in Kenya when he came across a lion known as Morani. At 14 years old, Morani is the current title holder for the oldest known lion in a national reserve in the East African country

The 33-year-old photographer captured a series of gorgeous photos of Morani as the big cat relaxed in Maasai Mara, a large national game reserve in the county of Narok that is world-famous for its populations of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and elephants.

The reserve, also known simply as The Mara (which means “spotted” in the local Maasai language), also hosts the annual Great Migration of wildebeest from Tanzania to Kenya, and it’s often named one of the great Wonders of the World.

Lum is based in Hawaii and was visiting Africa for a photography workshop when he shot his portraits of Morani.

“Just by looking at his face, you can tell this guy has been through a lot,” Lum says. “He went from a young stud leader of a pride, a king, to a retired old man who still fights for survival in the Mara.”

Morani was once part of a group of aging male lions, but he has outlived the others.

“Morani was a part of a coalition of four males and he’s the only one remaining out of the four,” Lum says. “He is a lone male who has been pushed out of the pride by younger, stronger males which is a natural process in lions as the strongest males will control the pride.”

Getting a sharp photo of Morani is not difficult once you locate him, as his level of physical activity is quite low, especially at his advanced age.

“In general, adult male lions are lazy by nature and can sleep for 20 hours a day!” Lum says. “We spotted him in the morning, then went back at the very end of the day only to find him no more than 15 feet from where we left him.

“Even when he does get up and sit down, it is a rather slow process.”

---

Image credits: Photographs by Leighton Lum / Caters News

CALIFORNIA

Clean Tech Startup Mote Unveils Plans for $100M Carbon Capture Plant

By Howard Fine

Monday, January 3, 2022

Mote says it’s the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen.

There’s a new local entrant in the global decarbonization race: Culver City-based cleantech startup Mote Inc.

On Dec. 15, Mote unveiled plans for a $100 million gasification plant on 5 acres of land in unincorporated Kern County to extract carbon dioxide from wood waste.
 
To build the plant, Mote intends to team up with Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. and SunGas Renewables, a subsidiary of Des Plaines, Ill.-based GTI International Inc. that makes gasification systems.

Assuming the project team is able to secure financing and obtain the necessary government approvals and permits, construction could begin toward the end of 2022, and the plant could start operations sometime in 2024.

For Mote, this will be the first real-world application for its approach to decarbonization, one that goes beyond just capturing and storing carbon and tries to tap into multiple markets.
 
Some of the carbon dioxide would be stored underground, where it could generate credits that industrial companies could buy to meet carbon emission reduction mandates. The company is also looking to sell some of the carbon dioxide to concrete producers, who would inject it into their concrete.
 
Mote also intends to sell one of the byproducts of this carbon extraction process — hydrogen gas — to hydrogen fuel station operators.

Multiple markets

Many other carbon extraction companies have arisen over the past decade or so, with several — including Westwood-based CarbonBuilt Inc. — targeting markets to reuse and store the extracted carbon. But Mote is one of a few that aim to target several markets at once.

Mote co-founder and Chief Executive Patrick “Mac” Kennedy sees the hydrogen fuel market as the company’s most unique niche.
“As the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen, we are addressing the ever-growing demand for renewable hydrogen with a carbon-negative approach,” Kennedy said in the company’s announcement.

In an interview with the Business Journal, Kennedy, a serial entrepreneur, said he first launched a carbon extraction business under the Mote name in 2017, which targeted the heavy-duty truck market.

But after a series of discussions Kennedy had with his friend, Joshuah Stolaroff, an environmental scientist who ran the carbon capture program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Kennedy pivoted to the current multimarket approach for carbon extraction products in early 2020. Stolaroff year joined the fledgling venture earlier this as chief technology officer.

The pair looked around for a carbon-based source that could serve as the input for the carbon extraction and found a cheap, plentiful one in wood waste. There’s plenty of manmade wood waste, including a supply from building demolitions and agricultural operations. But by far, the most common wood waste source is dead trees in forests in California and elsewhere.
 
In California alone, nearly 150 million trees died between 2010 and 2019 because of drought, bark beetle infestations, wildfires and other causes, according to the University of California’s journal “California Agriculture.” These dead trees have become an increasingly urgent concern for both state officials and electric utility executives who are trying to reduce the risk of massive and devastating wildfires.

“We hope to create a market for unburned wood waste coming from forests,” Kennedy told the Business Journal.
 
Burned wood waste is unusable for carbon extraction purposes since the act of burning releases the carbon.

In Mote’s gasification process, the wood waste is heated to nearly 1,500 degrees, which releases the carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases. Then, a chemical solvent is used to separate out the carbon dioxide and hydrogen from each other. The carbon dioxide gas is then piped either to an underground storage facility or directly into trucks for transport to concrete producers. The hydrogen gas is piped into specialized trucks for transport to hydrogen fueling stations.

When operating at full capacity, the plant is expected to produce approximately 7,000 metric tons of hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually. That’s equivalent to removing more than 32,000 cars off the road.

Funding for fuel

Mote must still obtain a number of government approvals for the project and then will need to obtain construction financing. The company in the fall raised $1.1 million in seed funding for its own operations as it goes through these next steps.

Among the investors were San Francisco-based socially conscious investment firm Preston-Werner Ventures and London-based Counteract Partners Ltd., which invests in carbon removal technologies. Kennedy said the company is in discussions with these and other investors for follow-on funding.

The company also hopes to win funding from a $50 million hydrogen fuel generation fund set up last year by the state and administered through Pasadena’s Calstart, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting clean transportation technologies. And the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill that was enacted this past fall contains $8 billion in support for “clean hydrogen hubs” around the nation.

Kennedy also said Mote plans to seek out customers for the carbon and hydrogen products from the gasification plant among the industrial companies that tap into the state’s carbon credit market to meet state-mandated carbon-emission reduction targets. Among these industrial companies are concrete and cement producers.

He said the company is in talks with Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Carbon Cure Technologies Inc., a company similar to CarbonBuilt that is developing a technology to inject carbon dioxide into concrete, thereby locking in the carbon. If a deal could be worked out, Carbon Cure could become a regular customer for the carbon dioxide extract produced at the Kern County plant.

“CarbonCure applauds Mote as it enters the market with its innovative hydrogen production process. Curbing climate change requires creative, complementary solutions to scale up carbon removal rapidly,” Robert Niven, CarbonCure’s chief executive, said in the Dec. 15 announcement. “We look forward to an ongoing collaboration,” he added.

As for the hydrogen fuel, Kennedy said that the fact that it is produced in a process that removes carbon dioxide gives it a negative carbon score, which helps fuel station operators meet the state’s low carbon fuel standard.

“This is what separates our hydrogen fuel out from other producers,” Kennedy said.
Besides obtaining construction financing, Mote’s biggest challenge is likely to be coordinating supply chains on both ends of its planned business model.

“Their biggest challenge is supply chains: They are bringing two different businesses together into a single supply chain,” said Roger Aines, chief scientist of the energy program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
 
“On the input side, they will have to get large quantities of wood from dead trees in forests under contract and then transport that wood waste to their Kern County plant,” Aines said. “Then, once the wood has been gasified, they have to have contracts to transport those gases either to a storage site or to a (hydrogen) fuel station. That’s a tremendous amount of coordinating of supply chains.”

Aines said this all might be made easier as more government funding pours into this sector.

“The state is definitely interested in making all these things happen,” he said.

 

Every US-Based Cruise Ship With Passengers Has Reported COVID-19 Cases

Cruise ships at PortMiami, 2016 (Corey Seeman / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

PUBLISHED JAN 4, 2022 6:38 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

With just 11 days to go until the expiration of the CDC's COVID-19 rules for cruise ships, the agency says that the epidemic has reached every vessel in the actively-operating U.S. cruise fleet. 

97 out of the 110 cruise ships that the agency tracks have reported COVID-19 cases on board within the past week, including every ship listed in a passenger-carrying voyage status, according to the latest numbers on the agency's website on January 4.

The CDC does not rank infection events by size, and all recently-reported U.S.-based cruise outbreaks have affected about one percent or less of the total onboard complement. The overwhelming majority of passengers and crew are fully vaccinated before boarding, and most of those who test positive experience no symptoms or light symptoms, according to initial industry reports. 

The 13 ships that have not reported any COVID cases recently are all in "crew-only" voyage status, including Carnival Horizon; Carnival Paradise; Carnival Sensation; Ovation of the Seas; Vision of the Seas; Celebrity Eclipse; Celebrity Solstice; Noordam; Crown Princess; Norwegian Sun; Regatta; Seven Seas Navigator; and Silver Muse. 

Last week, the CDC advised the public to avoid cruise ships due to the emergence of the highly-contagious omicron variant, which has proven resistant to immunity in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. “The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high, even if you are fully vaccinated and have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose," CDC cautioned in an advisory note. 

A handful of cruise ships have altered their itineraries due to COVID-driven disruption on board, but the bulk of the U.S.-based industry continues to operate largely as before under the rules of the CDC's Conditional Sailing Order (CSO). That order has been extended until January 15, but it will expire shortly - along with CDC's onboard testing and reporting requirements - unless it is renewed. 

So far, evidence suggests that omicron is more infectious but less harmful than previous variants. It is spreading rapidly on shore, but it is not driving significantly higher rates of hospitalization (except among children). At the current rate of spread, it could peak in some states - including the leading U.S. cruise state of Florida - before the end of the month, according to epidemiologists.  

The shoreside pattern appears to be mirrored in cruise lines' experiences with omicron so far. At the end of last month, Royal Caribbean reported that it has had 41 COVID hospitalizations since it restarted operations in June, and none of them have been omicron cases, despite a recent rise in the number of positive test results. "Our case count has spiked, but the level of severity is significantly milder. We will remain nimble and in constant contact with health authorities," said the group's chief medical officer, Dr. Calvin Johnson.