Paying for paradise? Hawaii mulls fees for ecotourism crush

By AUDREY McAVOY

April 5, 2023

- People spend time on the black sand beach at Waianapanapa State Park in Hana, Hawaii

Taking care of Hawaii's unique natural environment costs money and now the state wants tourists to help pay for it, especially because growing numbers are traveling to the islands to enjoy the beauty of its outdoors — including some lured by dramatic vistas they've seen on social media. 

(AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File)

HONOLULU (AP) — Repairing coral reefs after boats run aground. Shielding native forest trees from a killer fungus outbreak. Patrolling waters for swimmers harassing dolphins and turtles.

Taking care of Hawaii’s unique natural environment takes time, people and money. Now Hawaii wants tourists to help pay for it, especially because growing numbers are traveling to the islands to enjoy the beauty of its outdoors — including some lured by dramatic vistas they have seen on social media.

 In this photo provided by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, federal and state law enforcement officers speak to swimmers in Honaunau, Hawaii, after the swimmers allegedly harassed a pod of wild spinner dolphins on March 26, 2023. 

– Hawaii authorities say 33 swimmers were harassing dolphins

“All I want to do, honestly, is to make travelers accountable and have the capacity to help pay for the impact that they have,” Democratic Gov. Josh Green said earlier this year. “We get between nine and 10 million visitors a year, (but) we only have 1.4 million people living here. Those 10 million travelers should be helping us sustain our environment.”

Hawaii lawmakers are considering legislation that would require tourists to pay for a yearlong license or pass to visit state parks and trails. They are still debating how much they would charge.

The governor campaigned last year on a platform of having all tourists pay a $50 fee to enter the state. Legislators think this would violate U.S. constitutional protections for free travel and have promoted their parks and trails approach instead. Either policy would be a first of its kind for any U.S. state.

Hawaii’s leaders are following the example of other tourism hotspots that have imposed similar fees or taxes like Venice, Italy, and Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. The Pacific island nation of Palau, for example, charges arriving international passengers $100 to help it manage a sprawling marine sanctuary and promote ecotourism.

State Rep. Sean Quinlan, a Democrat who chairs the House Tourism Committee, said changing traveler patterns are one reason behind Hawaii’s push. He said golf rounds per visitor per day have declined 30% over the past decade while hiking has increased 50%. People are also seeking out once-obscure sites that they have seen someone post on social media. The state doesn’t have the money to manage all these places, he said.

“It’s not like it was 20 years ago when you bring your family and you hit maybe one or two famous beaches and you go see Pearl Harbor. And that’s the extent of it,” Quinlan said. “These days it’s like, well, you know, ‘I saw this post on Instagram and there’s this beautiful rope swing, a coconut tree.’”

“All these places that didn’t have visitors now have visitors,” he said.

Most state parks and trails are currently free. Some of the most popular ones already charge, like Diamond Head State Monument, which features a trail leading from the floor of a 300,000-year-old volcanic crater up to its summit. It gets 1 million visitors each year and costs $5 for each traveler

West Virginia atheist inmate sues over Christian programming

By LEAH WILLINGHAM

yesterday

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — An atheist and secular humanist is suing multiple officials in charge of the agency that runs West Virginia’s jails and prisons, accusing the state of violating his constitutional rights by requiring Christian-affiliated programming as a condition of release.

Andrew Miller, who is currently incarcerated at Saint Marys Correctional Center and Jail, filed a lawsuit in a federal district court Tuesday alleging the state is forcing Christianity on incarcerated people and has failed to accommodate repeated requests to honor his lack of belief in God.

The suit claims Miller encountered “religious coercion” in June 2021 when he entered the Pleasants County correctional facility. Miller is serving a one- to 10-year, nondeterminative sentence for breaking and entering.

Miller alleges the federally-funded substance abuse treatment program he is participating in — which is a requirement for his parole consideration — is “infused with Christian practices,” including Christian reading materials and mandated Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, where the Serenity and Lord’s Prayer are recited.

Miller’s attorneys with the American Atheists are requesting the court require the state to immediately make secular alternatives for all religious elements in the program. Attorneys also want the program removed as a requirement of Miller’s reentry plan.

Several West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials, including Commissioner William K. Marshall, are named in the suit. A corrections spokesperson said Wednesday the division’s policy is not to comment on pending litigation.

American Atheists is an organization that fights for atheists’ civil liberties and advocates the separation of church and state in the U.S. The nonprofit legal services organization Mountain State Justice will serve as local counsel in Miller’s case.

Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, called the case an important lawsuit for “religious freedom and equality,” adding that a non-Christian’s rights “do not get set aside simply because a person is incarcerated.”

“If anything, these circumstances are when we must most zealously guard against government infringement on our right to live by our consciences,” Fish said.

Multiple courts have determined that step-based programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are religious-based programs because they are predicated on the existence of a higher power or a God. Steps ask participants to turn their “lives over to the care of God” and encourage prayer to improve “conscious contact with God.”

In the “Big Book,” the foundational document of these programs, “Chapter 4: We Agnostics” tells atheists and agnostics that they are “doomed to alcoholic death” unless they “seek Him.” The chapter characterizes non-believers as “handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.”

American Atheists has supported legislation to require that the criminal justice system inform defendants of their right to a secular recovery option, such as SMART Recovery or LifeRing. One such bill passed in New York, but it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in December 2022.

IRONICALLY AA IS NOT THE A.A. BUT IT IS BASED ON MR. CROWLEY'S 

DIARY OF A DRUG FIEND WHICH HAS NO HIGHER POWER THAN

 DO WHAT THOU WILT

https://www.amazon.com/Star-Spangled-Plagiarism-Alcoholics-Aleister/dp/B09YQ4W9P9

‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ explores vigilante eco-sabotage

By KRYSTA FAURIA

April 5, 2023

This image released by Neon shows Forrest Goodluck in a scene from "How to Blow Up a Pipeline." (Neon via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — When the creators of “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” initially set out to adapt the book of the same name, which critiques the docility of climate activism, director Daniel Goldhaber had in mind a very different movie than what they eventually made.

“I was very much in a place of anger and feeling very powerless and I was like, ‘Let’s make a big old propaganda piece,’” he said.

Goldhaber recalled his writing partners Ariela Barer, who also stars in the film, and Jordan Sjol talking him out of that place and convincing him that idea would ultimately “make for a very boring movie.”

They decided instead on a kind of heist thriller, which opens in theaters Friday, that follows a group of young activists who plot to take down an oil pipeline in West Texas. While the group is composed of people with starkly different backgrounds and reasons for being there, many of its members are personally affected by climate change and are united in their desperation to fight it — not unlike the young creative team themselves.

Neon’s “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is decidedly less prescriptive than Andreas Malm’s 2021 book, which argues that climate activists ought to look to past movements, such as the abolitionists and suffragettes, to see that substantial reforms in modern history have rarely been propagated by pacifism.

OFFICAL TRAILER

Goldhaber said he took into account critiques of the book and hopes the film is seen as a nuanced adaptation.

“If there’s a political viewpoint of the film, it’s not, ‘Go out and blow up a pipeline,’” he said.

This image released by Neon shows a scene from "How to Blow Up a Pipeline."

 (Neon via AP)

But the movie does rely heavily on arguments that Malm puts forward, an idea which came from Sjol’s musings about “adapting a work of academic theory into a movie,” Goldhaber explained.

Malm is a scholar of human ecology, an interdisciplinary field of research that focuses on human relationships to their environments across cultures. In his work on the climate movement, Malm has been an outspoken critic of nonviolence and a proponent of property destruction, calling it the only viable response to the enduring power of the fossil fuel industry.

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” joins a growing list of films exploring the issue of climate change and how best to fight it, from dark dramas like Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed,” to allegorical satires, such as Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up.”

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an eco-activism Ocean's Eleven | TIFF '22
 

MOVIE REVIEW

  

Challenge to Biden ‘Cost of Carbon’ policy dismissed

By KEVIN McGILL and MATTHEW BROWN

April 5, 2023

 A flare burns natural gas at an oil well, Aug. 26, 2021, in Watford City, N.D. A lawsuit that Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states filed challenging figures the Biden administration uses to calculate damages from greenhouse gasses was dismissed Wednesday, April 5, 2023, by a federal appeals court. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A lawsuit that Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states filed challenging figures the Biden administration uses to calculate damages from greenhouse gasses was dismissed Wednesday by a federal appeals court.

The unanimous decision by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was the latest defeat for states challenging the Biden “cost of carbon” policy. It leaves the administration to continue using a damage cost estimate of about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions as it develops environmental regulations. That estimate is under review by the administration and could increase.

The Biden cost estimate had been used during former President Barack Obama’s administration. President Joe Biden restored it on his first day in office after the administration of former President Donald Trump had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton.

A federal judge in Louisiana had ordered a halt to the administration’s approach early last year after the states filed a lawsuit. The states said the policy threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.


The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans blocked the judge’s order and the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

On Thursday the appeals court dismissed the case, saying the challenging states had no standing to sue because they had not shown that the regulations caused the economic harms their lawsuit cited.

“Plaintiffs contemplate harms that are several steps removed from — and are not guaranteed by — the challenged Executive Order,” wrote Judge Jacques Wiener, appointed to the court by former President George H.W. Bush, on behalf of a panel that also included Obama appointee Stephen Higginson and Trump appointee Cory Wilson.

The $51 per ton estimate was established in 2016 and used to justify major rules such as the Clean Power Plan — former President Barack Obama’s signature effort to address climate change by tightening emissions standards from coal-fired power plants — and separate rules imposing tougher vehicle emission standards. However, the Clean Power Plan never took effect after being blocked by federal courts.

Now, the administration is reviewing the $51 per ton estimate. The Environmental Protection Agency in September proposed a cost roughly four times higher than the Obama figure.

Researchers have said for years that the damage done by every ton of carbon dioxide that comes out of a smokestack or tailpipe far exceeds $51. A study last year in the journal Nature concluded the price should be $185 per ton — 3.6 times higher than the U.S. standard.

A 2017 report from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said current carbon pricing calculations were inadequate. Researchers began calculating damages from carbon emissions in the 1980s and before 2017, the last updates to the modelling were in the early to mid 1990s.

The other states whose officials sued are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press reporter Matthew Daly, in Washington, contributed to this report.

Panel affirms fines against coal mines owned by WVa governor

By JOHN RABY

yesterday

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal appeals panel has affirmed $2.5 million in penalties against Appalachian coal mines owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice over claims they violated a settlement meant to prevent pollution.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, made the ruling Tuesday in an appeal by Southern Coal Corp. and Premium Coal Co. Inc. of a lower court’s decision. The ruling also requires remediation work to be completed at mine sites.

The U.S. and several states settled and signed a consent decree with the companies in late 2016 to resolve allegations of Clean Water Act violations from Justice-owned mines in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Environmental Protection Agency had said Southern Coal didn’t submit complete and timely discharge monitoring reports, made unauthorized discharges and wouldn’t respond to the EPA’s requests for information.

The Justice Department said in a later filing that the defendants have “a long history” of Clean Water Act violations and noncompliance with the requirements of the 2016 agreement.

The companies had paid $2.9 million in penalties by 2021, but not the separate fines levied in September 2020 over the failure to submit timely permit applications that led to unpermitted discharges at mine sites in Tennessee and Alabama.

The appeals panel wrote that the lower court “properly recognized the absurdity of Southern Coal’s position that it could simply allow its permits to lapse to avoid obligations” under the consent decree. It said the decree had “plain language to mandate compliance with the Clean Water Act and derivative permitting obligations.”

Upon taking office in 2017, Justice said his children would run his business empire, but he stopped short of forming a blind trust, saying it was too complicated. The Republican governor has enterprises in hospitality, coal mining and agriculture, many of which have become mired in lawsuits.

EPA tightens mercury emissions limits at coal power plants

By MATTHEW DALY

April 5, 2023

 Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan testifies before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to examine President Joe Biden's proposed budget request for fiscal year 2024 for the Environmental Protection Agency, on Capitol Hill, March 22, 2023, in Washington. The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening rules that limit emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants from coal-fired power plants, updating standards imposed more than a decade ago.

 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana. File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening rules that limit emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants from coal-fired power plants, updating standards imposed more than a decade ago.

The rules proposed Wednesday would lower emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants that can harm brain development of young children and contribute to heart attacks and other health problems in adults.

The move follows a legal finding by EPA in February that regulating toxic emissions under the Clean Air Act is “appropriate and necessary” to protect the public health. The Feb. 17 finding reversed a move by former President Donald Trump’s administration to weaken the legal basis for limiting mercury emissions.

The proposed rule will support and strengthen EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which have delivered a 90% reduction in mercury emissions from power plants since they were adopted in 2012 under former President Barack Obama, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.

“By leveraging proven, emissions-reduction measures available at reasonable costs and encouraging new, advanced control technologies, we can reduce hazardous pollution from coal-fired power plants — protecting our planet and improving public health for all,” Regan said in a statement.

The proposed rule is expected to become final next year, “ensuring historic protections for communities across the nation, especially for our children and our vulnerable populations,” Regan said.

The new rule aims to eliminate up to 70% of mercury emissions and other toxic pollutants such as lead, nickel and arsenic, while also reducing fine dust from coal plant emissions.

The mercury rule is among several EPA regulations aimed at coal plants, including proposals to restrict smokestack emissions that burden downwindareas with smog, tighten limits on wastewater pollution and toughen standards for fine particle pollution, more commonly known as soot.

Biden has pledged to make the U.S. electricity sector carbon neutral by 2035, and stricter pollution standards have pushed electric plants to replace coal and oil with natural gas, wind and solar power.

The EPA said the mercury rule would result in the likely retirement of 500 megawatts of power by 2028 — an amount produced by a single large plant — but a spokesman for the National Mining Association called that number “grossly underestimated.″

The mercury rule “is one piece of a larger agenda to force retirements of well-operating coal plants,″ said Conor Bernstein, a spokesman for the mining group. “The cumulative effect of EPA’s agenda is a less reliable and increasingly expensive supply of electricity as the nation continues to struggle with energy-driven inflation.″

Regan did not attend a news briefing Wednesday, but he said last year that industry should “take a look at this suite of rules all at once and say, ‘Is it worth doubling down on investments in this current facility? Or should we look at the cost and say no, it’s time to pivot and invest in a clean energy future?’ ”

If some plants decide that investments in new technologies are not worth the cost ” and you get an expedited retirement, that’s the best tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Regan said at a March 2022 energy industry conference.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest single man-made source of mercury pollutants, which enter the food chain through fish and other items that people consume. Mercury can affect the nervous system and kidneys; the World Health Organization says fetuses are especially vulnerable to birth defects via exposure in a mother’s womb.

Environmental and public health groups praised the EPA proposal, saying it protects Americans, especially children, from some of the most dangerous forms of air pollution.

“There is no safe level of mercury exposure, and while we have made significant progress advancing clean energy, coal-fired power plants remain one of the largest sources of mercury pollution,″ said Holly Bender, senior director of energy campaigns for the Sierra Club.

“It’s alarming to think that toxic pollutants from coal plants can build up in places like Lake Michigan,″ where many Americans camp and swim during the summer, “and where people fish to feed their families,″ Bender said. “Our kids deserve to live and play in a healthy, safe environment.″

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric companies, said it was reviewing details of the EPA proposal, but added that its members “have fully and successfully implemented the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” for 11 years, “resulting in dramatically reduced mercury and related emissions” from U.S. power plants.

“We look forward to continuing to work with” EPA to ensure the final standard “is consistent with our industry’s ongoing clean energy transformation,” said Emily Fisher, the group’s executive vice president of clean energy,

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., took a more combative approach, saying Biden’s administration “continues to wage war on coal and affordable, reliable energy by issuing unnecessary regulations intended to drive down electricity production from our nation’s baseload power resources.″

Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Environment Committee and a fierce champion of coal produced by her home state, said Biden “has again put politics over sound policy. With one job-killing regulation after another, the EPA continues to threaten the livelihoods of those in West Virginia and other energy-producing communities across the country.″

Mindful of such criticism, the White House said this week it is making $450 million available for solar farms and other clean energy projects at the site of current or former coal mines, part of Biden’s efforts to combat climate change. Up to five projects nationwide will be funded through the 2021 infrastructure law, the White House said Tuesday.

Coal capacity climbs worldwide despite promises to slash it

By SIBI ARASU

Steam rises from the coal-fired power plant Niederaussem, Germany, on Nov. 2, 2022. 

The potential to burn coal for electricity, cement, steel and other uses went up in 2022 despite global promises to phase down the fuel that's the biggest source of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere, a report late Wednesday, April 5, 2023, found. 

(AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

The capacity to burn coal for power went up in 2022 despite global promises to phase down the fuel that’s the biggest source of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere, a report Wednesday found.

The coal fleet grew by 19.5 gigawatts last year, enough to light up around 15 million homes, with nearly all newly commissioned coal projects in China, according to a report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks a variety of energy projects around the globe.

That 1% increase comes at a time when the world needs to retire its coal fleet four and a half times faster to meet climate goals, the report said. In 2021, countries around the world promised to phase down the use of coal to help achieve the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future,” said Flora Champenois, the report’s lead author and the project manager for GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker.

New coal plants were added in 14 countries and eight countries announced new coal projects. China, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Zimbabwe were the only countries that both added new coal plants and announced new projects. China accounted for 92% of all new coal project announcements.

China added 26.8 gigawatts and India added about 3.5 gigawatts of new coal power capacity to their electricity grids. China also gave clearance for nearly 100 gigawatts of new coal power projects with construction likely to begin this year.

But “the long term trajectory is still towards clean energy,” said Shantanu Srivastava, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis who is based in New Delhi. Srivastava said the pandemic and the war in Ukraine temporarily drove some nations toward fossil fuels.

In Europe, where the Russian invasion of Ukraine meant a scramble for alternative energy sources and droughts stifled hydropower, the continent only saw a very minor increase in coal use.

Others went the other way. There were significant shutdowns in the U.S. where 13.5 gigawatts of coal power was retired. It’s one of 17 countries that closed up plants in the past year.

With nearly 2,500 plants around the world, coal accounts for about a third of the total amount of energy installation globally. Other fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable energy make up the rest.

To meet climate goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, coal plants in rich countries need to be retired by 2030 and coal plants in developing countries need to be shut down by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. That means around 117 gigawatts of coal needs to be retired every year, but only 26 gigawatts was retired in 2022.

“At this rate, the transition away from existing and new coal isn’t happening fast enough to avoid climate chaos,” said Champenois.

Srivastava added that its important to make sure the millions employed in coal and other dirty industries are not left behind when transitioning to clean energy, although that gets more difficult the more coal projects get locked in.

“Every day we delay a transition to clean energy,” Srivastava said, “it not only makes it harder to achieve climate goals but it also makes the transition more expensive.”



___

This story has been corrected to make clear that the report looked into coal generation capacity, not coal use.

___

Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Are robot waiters the future? 

Some restaurants think so

WE HAVE ONE AT A BUFFET IN EDMONTON VERY PRIMITIVE DELIVERY SERVICE NOT REPLACING HUMANS YET

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

A BellaBot robot greets guests at the Noodle Topia restaurant on Monday, March 20, 2023, in Madison Heights, Mich. Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry’s labor shortages and sales have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) — You may have already seen them in restaurants: waist-high machines that can greet guests, lead them to their tables, deliver food and drinks and ferry dirty dishes to the kitchen. Some have cat-like faces and even purr when you scratch their heads.

But are robot waiters the future? It’s a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer.

Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry’s labor shortages. Sales of them have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is where the world is going,” said Dennis Reynolds, dean of the Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. The school’s restaurant began using a robot in December, and Reynolds says it has eased the workload for human staff and made service more efficient.

But others say robot waiters aren’t much more than a gimmick that have a long way to go before they can replace humans. They can’t take orders, and many restaurants have steps, outdoor patios and other physical challenges they can’t adapt to.

“Restaurants are pretty chaotic places, so it’s very hard to insert automation in a way that is really productive,” said Craig Le Clair, a vice president with the consulting company Forrester who studies automation.

Still, the robots are proliferating. Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. states and overseas. Shenzen, China-based Pudu Robotics, which was founded in 2016, has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.

“Every restaurant chain is looking toward as much automation as possible,” said Phil Zheng of Richtech Robotics, an Austin-based maker of robot servers. “People are going to see these everywhere in the next year or two.”

Li Zhai was having trouble finding staff for Noodle Topia, his Madison Heights, Michigan, restaurant, in the summer of 2021, so he bought a BellaBot from Pudu Robotics. The robot was so successful he added two more; now, one robot leads diners to their seats while another delivers bowls of steaming noodles to tables. Employees pile dirty dishes onto a third robot to shuttle back to the kitchen.

Robot waiters are rolling into more restaurants amid labor shortages

Are robot waiters the future? It’s a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer (April 6)(AP video: Mike Householder)

Now, Zhai only needs three people to do the same volume of business that five or six people used to handle. And they save him money. A robot costs around $15,000, he said, but a person costs $5,000 to $6,000 per month.

Zhai said the robots give human servers more time to mingle with customers, which increases tips. And customers often post videos of the robots on social media that entice others to visit.

“Besides saving labor, the robots generate business,” he said.

Interactions with human servers can vary. Betzy Giron Reynosa, who works with a BellaBot at The Sushi Factory in West Melbourne, Florida, said the robot can be a pain.

“You can’t really tell it to move or anything,” she said. She has also had customers who don’t want to interact with it.

But overall the robot is a plus, she said. It saves her trips back and forth to the kitchen and gives her more time with customers.

Labor shortages accelerated the adoption of robots globally, Le Clair said. In the U.S., the restaurant industry employed 15 million people at the end of last year, but that was still 400,000 fewer than before the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. In a recent survey, 62% of restaurant operators told the association they don’t have enough employees to meet customer demand.

Pandemic-era concerns about hygiene and adoption of new technology like QR code menus also laid the ground for robots, said Karthik Namasivayam, director of The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business.

“Once an operator begins to understand and work with one technology, other technologies become less daunting and will be much more readily accepted as we go forward,” he said.

Namasivayam notes that public acceptance of robot servers is already high in Asia. Pizza Hut has robot servers in 1,000 restaurants in China, for example.

The U.S. was slower to adopt robots, but some chains are now testing them. Chick-fil-A is trying them at multiple U.S. locations, and says it’s found that the robots give human employees more time to refresh drinks, clear tables and greet guests.

Marcus Merritt was surprised to see a robot server at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta recently. The robot didn’t seem to be replacing staff, he said; he counted 13 employees in the store, and workers told him the robot helps service move a little faster. He was delighted that the robot told him to have a great day, and expects he’ll see more robots when he goes out to eat.

“I think technology is part of our normal everyday now. Everybody has a cell phone, everybody uses some form of computer,” said Merritt, who owns a marketing business. “It’s a natural progression.”

But not all chains have had success with robots.

Chili’s introduced a robot server named Rita in 2020 and expanded the test to 61 U.S. restaurants before abruptly halting it last August. The chain found that Rita moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers. And 58% of guests surveyed said Rita didn’t improve their overall experience.

Haidilao, a hot pot chain in China, began using robots a year ago to deliver food to diners’ tables. But managers at several outlets said the robots haven’t proved as reliable or cost-effective as human servers.

Wang Long, the manager of a Beijing outlet, said his two robots have both have broken down.

“We only used them now and then,” Wang said. “It is a sort of concept thing and the machine can never replace humans.”

Eventually, Namasivayam expects that a certain percentage of restaurants — maybe 30% — will continue to have human servers and be considered more luxurious, while the rest will lean more heavily on robots in the kitchen and in dining rooms. Economics are on the side of robots, he said; the cost of human labor will continue to rise, but technology costs will fall.

But that’s not a future everyone wants to see. Saru Jayaraman, who advocates for higher pay for restaurant workers as president of One Fair Wage, said restaurants could easily solve their labor shortages if they just paid workers more.

“Humans don’t go to a full-service restaurant to be served by technology,” she said. “They go for the experience of themselves and the people they care about being served by a human.”

___

AP researcher Yu Bing contributed from Beijing.

A BellaBot robot at the Noodle Topia restaurant delivers food and drinks to a table, Monday, March 20, 2023, in Madison Heights, Mich. Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry’s labor shortages and sales have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide. 



Li Zhai of the Noodle Topia restaurant points out features on his BellaBot robot, Monday, March 20, 2023 in Madison Heights, Mich. Zhai was having trouble finding staff for the restaurant in the summer of 2021, so he bought a robot which was so successful he added two more. With the robots, Zhai only needs three workers to do the same volume of business that five or six people used to handle. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

New Ram electric pickup can go up to 500 miles on a charge

April 5, 2023

1 of 14
Mike Koval, RAM Brand Chief Executive Officer, introduces the REV Ram 1500 at the New York International Auto Show in New York Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

DETROIT (AP) — An electric Ram pickup truck with up to 500 mile (800 kilometers) of range per charge and a battery-powered people-hauling Kia SUV are among the new vehicles being introduced Wednesday at the New York International Auto Show.

The two debuts in New York on Wednesday are among only nine automaker news conferences, far short of previous years. Many of the new models have been rolled out previously as automakers move away from auto shows and introduce new products virtually.

The Ram 1500 Rev joins pickups from Ford, General Motors, Rivian and Lordstown Motors in a field that’s growing increasingly crowded. Tesla is supposed to start selling its long-awaited Cybertruck later in the year.

The Ram looks more like the current gas-powered model than a more futuristic concept vehicle the company showed off in January. But it’s full of new technology.

The Rev will come with a choice of two battery packs, the standard one with up to 350 miles (560 kilometers) of range and an optional larger pack with an expected range of 500 miles (800 kilometers).

The company says it also can tow up to 14000 pounds (6350 kilograms) and carry 2700 pounds (1,225 kilograms) in its bed. The 654-horsepower truck also can travel from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 4.4 seconds, exceptionally quick for a vehicle that size.

Stellantis, which makes Ram vehicles, says the all-wheel-drive Rev can add up to 110 miles (177 kilometers) of range in about 10 minutes with a 350 kilowatt fast charger. The truck also is capable of powering worksite tools, sending power back to the grid or powering a home during an outage, the company says.

It’s built on a new frame designed specifically for larger electric vehicles.

The truck isn’t due in showrooms until the fourth quarter of 2024. The price will be announced closer to the on-sale date.

Stellantis says the truck will be built in the U.S., but it hasn’t disclosed which factory. The company says that under current rules, the Ram Rev should qualify for a $7,500 U.S. electric vehicle tax credit. To qualify, vehicles must be assembled North America. Also, a certain percentage of battery minerals and parts must come from the U.S. or free trade partners.

Kia’s new EV9 is a little longer than the automaker’s popular gas-powered Telluride, and it can seat up to seven people in three rows of seats.

The EV9 comes with two powertrain options, a standard battery and rear-wheel-drive, and an optional larger battery that’s expected to go 300 miles (480 kilometers) on a charge. All-wheel-drive also is an option.

Kia says the dual-motor GT line comes with 379 horsepower and can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in five seconds. The battery can be charged from 10% to 80% in under 25 minutes at a fast-charging station, Kia says.

The EV9 will hit U.S. showrooms late this year, and it’s expected to be built at the company’s plant in West Point, Georgia, starting next year. The automaker says it’s reviewing requirements and doesn’t know yet whether it will qualify for the $7,500 tax credit.

The EV9′s price will be announced closer to the date it goes on sale.

No driver? No problem. Robotaxis eye San Francisco expansion

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

April 5, 2023

Driverless taxis navigate complex road to future

Two car companies, Waymo and Cruise, want to expand driverless taxi service in San Francisco and other U.S. cities. But as they seek regulatory approvals, some officials are raising concerns about erratic driving behavior. (AP Video/Terry Chea) (April 5)


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two trailblazing ride-hailing services are heading toward uncharted territory as they seek regulatory approval to transport passengers around the clock throughout one of the most densely populated U.S. cities in vehicles that will have no one sitting in the driver’s seat.

If Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, and Waymo, a spinoff from Google, reach their goal before year’s end, San Francisco would become the first U.S. city with two totally driverless services competing against Uber, Lyft and traditional taxis — all of which depend on people to control the automobiles.

But Cruise and Waymo still must navigate around potential roadblocks, including complaints about their vehicles making unexpected, traffic-clogging stops that threaten to inconvenience other travelers and imperil public safety.

Cruise already has been charging people for driverless rides in less congested parts of San Francisco during night-time hours since last June. Waymo has been giving free driverless rides in a broader swath of the city while awaiting clearance to begin charging passengers in robotic vehicles that Google secretly began working on 14 years ago.

The effort to unleash dueling driverless services throughout San Francisco is shaping up to be just the first step in a far more ambitious expansion centered in California — a state where more than 35 million vehicles driven by humans are currently registered.

Cruise recently applied for permission to begin testing its robotic vehicles throughout California at speeds of up to 55 miles per hour (88 kilometers per hour) — 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour) above the maximum speed for its robotaxis in San Francisco. Waymo is already testing its driverless cars in Los Angeles — the second largest city in the U.S.

The California push comes on top of Cruise starting to test its robotaxis in Austin, Texas, as well as Phoenix, where since 2020 Waymo’s driverless ride-hailing service has been carrying passengers on Arizona roads that are far less congested and challenging than the streets of San Francisco.

″We still have work to do, but it’s improving at a pretty rapid rate,” Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt told The Associated Press. “As it gets fine-tuned, it will get really elegant over time, but also the safety continues to improve.”

Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo’s chief product officer, expects the company’s past experience to pay off as it transplants what it has learned from operating a driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix to more heavily trafficked cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“The uncertainty is definitely now far lower, having operated a fully autonomous service with real riders,” Panigrahi said.

Two Waymo driverless taxis stop and face each other on a street in San Francisco before driving past each other, on Feb. 15, 2023. Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, and Waymo, a spinoff from Google, both are on the verge of operating 24-hour services that would transport passengers throughout one of the most densely populated U.S. cities in vehicles that will have no one sitting in the driver’s seat. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Both Cruise and Waymo recently announced their driverless fleets each have covered more than 1 million miles without a major accident. But their robotaxis also have experienced nagging problems in San Francisco that have caused traffic headaches and other nuisances that threaten to inconvenience people or, worse, block emergency vehicles rushing to a fire or other urgent calls for help.

“The expected things are easy, but it’s the unexpected things that humans react to in real time that are a concern,” said transportation expert Nico Larco, who is director of the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon. “Best case, it will just causes confusion, havoc, congestion if the cars stop in the middle of the road. But the worst cases could actually be harmful to someone.”

A pair of Associated Press reporters witnessed the potential problems first hand in mid-February after a Waymo vehicle safely transported them on a trip through San Francisco that required navigating hilly terrain, turning in rush-hour traffic and yielding to pedestrians darting out into the crosswalks.

During one ride, the robotaxi stopped in the middle of the street after the AP reporters got out, and remained there for several minutes while a line of human-operated cars stacked up behind it. It turned out that a back door on the driver’s side hadn’t completely closed.

In another glitch involving Cruise last September, an AP reporter took a roughly five-mile ride in a robotaxi nicknamed “Peaches,” which repeatedly bypassed the designated destination. The reporter finally had to use the Cruise app to contact a dispatcher in a remote center so the car could be stopped — in the middle of the street.

Vogt noted that a number of improvements have been made since then, and indeed two different Cruise robotaxis — one named “Cherry” and the other named “Hollandaise” — dropped off the same reporter and his colleague at their designated designations on a follow-up trip, although Cherry stopped at a bus stop that briefly prevented the arrival of an oncoming bus.

Broader concerns about robotaxis operating in ways that cause headaches for the people outside the vehicle were raised in a cautionary letter sent to California regulators in January by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.

The letter cited at least 92 reported incidents of Cruise robotaxis making sudden stops in the street through Dec. 31. At least three of the incidents blocked the right of ways for public transportation for periods ranging from nine to 18 minutes.

Within the past year, driverless Cruise vehicles have also obstructed firefighters rushing to a three-alarm fire and or illegally entered into areas where there were ongoing efforts to douse a fire, according to the authority, which is asking regulators to hold off on unleashing robotaxis throughout San Francisco at all hours until there is more information about why and how often the cars periodically clog traffic. The abrupt braking and stops by Cruise’s robotaxis have also been under investigation by federal regulators since late last year.

“We are just very wary,” said Tilly Chang, the executive director for the San Francisco transportation authority. “We want to be supporters and help facilitate (driverless rides), but we have to make sure it’s safe.”

Meanwhile, dozens of other technology companies and automakers have joined in a race to develop self-driving car technology at a collective cost of more than $100 billion. Their ultimate goal is to make money off robotic drivers that are safer and less expensive than human drivers. Robotaxis could also lower prices for passengers, although Vogt believes consumers may be willing to pay more for rides without a stranger behind the wheel.

The investments so far have produced a mixed bag of successes, flops and hyperbole from the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who predicted nearly four years ago that the electric automaker would be running a huge robotaxi service by the end of 2020 but still hasn’t come close to realizing that ambition.

Cruise’s owner, the nearly 125-year-old General Motors, is nonetheless so confident robotaxis will drive more responsibly than humans and be able to expand its driverless service into more U.S. markets that it made the bold prediction last fall that Cruise would generate $1 billion in revenue by 2025 — a big jump from Cruise’s revenue of $106 million last year when it also lost nearly $2 billion.

That optimism is in sharp contrast to the disheartening experience of another storied automaker, Ford Motor, which paid $1 billion in 2017 to acquire driverless startup Argo AI, only to shut down the division last October and swallow a $2.7 billion loss after failing to find a buyer for the technology.