Ocean shippers playing catch up to electric vehicle fire risk

Story by By Lisa Baertlein and Anthony Deutsch •  Thomson Reuters

Smoke rises as a fire broke out on the cargo ship Fremantle Highway, at sea

LOS ANGELES/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Electric vehicles are crisscrossing the globe to reach their eager buyers, but the battery technology involved in the zero- emission automobiles is exposing under-prepared maritime shippers to the risk of hard-to-control fires, industry, insurance and emergency response officials said.

That risk has been put under the spotlight by the burning car carrier drifting off the Dutch coast. The Dutch coastguard said the fire's cause was unknown, but Dutch broadcaster RTL released a recording in which an emergency responder is heard saying "the fire started in the battery of an electric car."

While all logistics companies deal with the risk of EV lithium-ion batteries burning with twice the energy of a normal fire, the maritime industry hasn't kept up with the developing technology and how it creates greater risk, maritime officials and insurers said.

There were 209 ship fires reported during 2022, the highest number in a decade and 17% more than in 2021, according to a report from insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). Of that total, 13 occurred on car carriers, but how many involved EVs was not available.

The European Maritime Safety Agency said in a March report the main cargo types identified as responsible for "a large share of cargo fire accidents included ... lithium-ion batteries."

Dutch news agency ANP, citing operator "K" Lines, said there are almost 4,000 cars on the ship. That total includes 25 EVs.

A person answering the phone at "K" Line's main U.S. office said he was not authorized to discuss the fire. Japan's Shoei Kisen, which owns the ship, said it was working with authorities to get control of the fire.

The cause of the fire, while still officially undetermined, has raised questions about "what blind spots there are when transporting electric cars powered by batteries - which when they catch fire can't be extinguished with water, or even by oxygen deprivation," said Nathan Habers, spokesperson for the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners (KVNR).

"The first question that comes to mind is: Does the current code stack up against the risk profile of this type of goods?" he added.

One hazard in lithium-ion batteries is "thermal runaway," a rapid and unstoppable increase in temperature that leads to fires in EVs that are hard to extinguish and can spontaneously reignite.

Fire extinguishing systems on the massive ships that haul cars weren't designed for those hotter fires, and shipping companies and regulators are scrambling to catch up, said Douglas Dillon, executive director of the Tri-state Maritime Safety Association that covers Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Recent fire-related losses are resulting in increased insurance costs for automakers shipping cargo and costs are likely to increase for vessel owners as well, said John Frazee, a managing director at insurance broker Marsh. As ship owners seek to limit losses by legally pursuing automakers whose vehicles are determined to have caused a fire, automakers are buying additional liability protection, he said.

Exacerbating the risks is the business model used by the companies that includes tightly packed ships. Auto carriers like the burning ship are known as RoRos, which stands for roll-on/roll-off - the way cars are loaded and unloaded.

RoRos are like floating parking garages and can have a dozen or more decks carrying thousands of vehicles, industry officials said. Unlike parking lots, however, cars are parked bumper-to-bumper with as little as a foot or two of space overhead.

Firemen typically put out EV battery fires on roadsides by clearing the area around the burning vehicle and flooding the underside with water, something difficult to do on a RoRo, Dillon said.

"There's no way for a firefighter in protective gear to get to the location of a fire" on a ship, he said, adding the cramped conditions increase the danger getting trapped.

While trains and trucks also transport EVs, isolating and extinguishing fires is easier as workers can unhook a rail car and a trucker can pull over, said Frazee.

Frazee expects insurers to lead the charge on strengthening safety systems on ships. Options being worked on include new chemicals to douse flames, specialized EV fire blankets, battery piercing fire hose nozzles and proposals to segregate EVs.

"I see no quick solution," Frazee said.

The International Maritime Organization, which sets regulations for safety at sea, plans to evaluate new measures next year for ships transporting EVs in light of the growing number of fires on cargo ships, a spokesperson told Reuters.

That could include specifications on types of water extinguishers available on boats and limitations on the amount a battery can be charged, which impacts flammability.

With EVs here to stay, KVNR's Habers said his group is discussing tightening regulations to account for the additional safety risks.

"There is already a whole lot of communication underway about this," he said, "but with this incident it becomes apparent we might need to speed up the process, especially when you consider that the number of this sort of cars is only going to rise."

Global auto sales last year totaled 81 million vehicles, 9.5% of which were EVs, according to EV-Volumes.com. China and Europe have been the most aggressive regions in pushing automakers to shift to EVs, and U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has proposed rules that could result in as much as two-thirds of the new vehicle market shifting to EVs by 2032.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, additional reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Berlin, editing by Ben Klayman and Diane Craft)

Alaska asks US Supreme Court to strike down the rejection of a proposed copper, gold mine



ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The state of Alaska wants the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a federal agency's rejection of a proposed copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska's Bristol Bay region.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January blocked the proposed Pebble Mine, citing concerns with potential impacts on a rich aquatic ecosystem that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. It was the 14th time in the roughly 50-year history of the federal Clean Water Act that the EPA flexed its powers to bar or restrict activities over their potential impacts on waters, including fisheries.

Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor in a statement Wednesday said having a case heard directly by the Supreme Court rather than first in the lower courts is “an extraordinary ask, but it’s appropriate given the extraordinary decision being challenged.”

“The EPA’s order strikes at the heart of Alaska’s sovereignty, depriving the State of its power to regulate its lands and waters,” according to the court filing.

An EPA spokesperson said the agency was reviewing Wednesday's filing, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The EPA has said its decision would prohibit certain waters from being used as disposal sites for the discharge of material for the construction and operation of the proposed Pebble project. The decision also would prohibit future proposals to build or operate a mine to develop the deposit that would result in the same or greater level of impacts.

Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. owns the Pebble Limited Partnership, which is pursuing the mine. Northern Dynasty President and CEO Ron Thiessen in a statement said the company plans to support the state in its legal action and left open the possibility of pursuing separate litigation.

In cases where states sue the federal government, they can bring complaints directly to the court, though only a few such cases are heard annually.

A Virginia-based law firm known for championing conservative causes, Consovoy McCarthy, is representing the state in the lawsuit as Supreme Court counsel. The firm previously contracted with the state in a dispute with public employee unions.

Alaska Native tribes and environmental groups have long pushed for the rejection of the mine.

Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, called the state's filing a “slap in the face to Bristol Bay” and said tribes “will use every tool at our disposal to protect our waters, our salmon, and our people.”

The Associated Press

US Supreme Court allows construction to resume on the Mountain Valley Pipeline




WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed construction to resume on a contested natural-gas pipeline that is being built through Virginia and West Virginia.

Work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline had been blocked by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, even after Congress ordered the project's approval as part of the bipartisan bill to increase the debt ceiling. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in June.

The high court's order came as a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing arguments in the case.

The Biden administration backed the company in calling for the Supreme Court’s intervention.

“All necessary permits have been issued and approved, we passed bipartisan legislation in Congress, the president signed that legislation into law, and now the Supreme Court has spoken: construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline can finally resume, which is a major win for American energy and American jobs,” West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said in a statement.

Lawyers for the company said they needed quick Supreme Court action to keep plans on track to finish building the 300-mile (500-kilometer) pipeline and put it into service by the winter, when the need for natural gas for heating grows.

Related video: Appeals court blocks construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline even after Congress says it can't (WTVR Richmond, VA)
Duration 1:20  View on Watch

Environmental groups have opposed the the $6.6 billion project, designed to meet growing energy demands in the South and Mid-Atlantic by transporting gas from the Marcellus and Utica fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, said in a statement that allowing the pipeline to proceed “puts the profits of a few corporations ahead of the health and safety of Appalachian communities. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a threat to our water, our air, and our climate.”

Mountain Valley Pipeline said the work is largely complete, except for a 3-mile (5-kilometer) section that cuts through the Jefferson National Forest.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who had asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, said after the ruling that there was an “urgent need” for the pipeline to be completed without delay.

The appeals court did not immediately rule on Mountain Valley Pipeline’s motion to dismiss challenges to the project over concerns about the pipeline’s impact on endangered species, erosion and stream sedimentation.

Derek Teaney, an attorney for Appalachian Mountain Advocates, told the appeals court that Congress’ action last month requiring that all necessary permits be issued for the pipeline's construction “crosses the fence between the judicial power and the legislative power.”

Appeals Judge James A. Wynn acknowledged, “If we grant the motion, this is probably the last time we’re going to see it.”

___

Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press

Edmonton  bat monitoring program aims to explore natural pest control

Story by Emily Williams • CBC

T he easiest way to find a bat roosting site is to look for traces of guano — or bat droppings — underneath a bridge. Especially during the summer period when bats are raising their pups.

The City of Edmonton is undertaking this work with a new bat monitoring program this year. It's the first time the city has done an official assessment of what bats are in the city, and where.

Initiated due to a shift in the city's Mosquito Control Program, the bat monitoring program can help support species that serve as natural pest control.

The city wants to decrease pesticide use and reduce habitat suitable for mosquitoes, said Sarah McPike, senior biological sciences technologist at the city's Pest Management Lab.



Guano, a telltale sign that a bat roosting site is nearby. (Emily Williams/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

A bat's diet is more than just mosquitoes, however.

"While bats do use mosquitoes as part of their diet and we want to help support them in continuing to eat mosquitoes, they also eat a lot of other things like beetles and some aquatic bugs and moths — things that are big and juicy," McPike said.

"So all of that helps to contribute to a healthy ecosystem and we want to help support that within the city limits."



Cory Olsen, Nikqueta Mazur, and Sarah McPike looking under a bridge for bats. (Emily Williams/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Nikqueta Mazur, biological science technologist at the Pest Management Lab, said the city is looking to see if there is anything they can do to encourage bats to be in the city. One way of doing that is looking at what habitats they prefer.


Martha Stewart Living   How to Attract Bats to Your Yard—and Why You Want To
0:44

"Currently our best way of monitoring them is to do evening exit surveys," Mazur siad.

"We'll go to either a bridgeside or a bat box that we want to know if it's being used. And we will sit there in the evening for about an hour and see if we can see the bats exiting as they're coming out to feed."

Bats tend to nestle themselves into tight sheltered spots. While a bridge isn't a natural habitat for bats, they are a popular choice for roosts.

Bat boxes are artificial roosts, typically made out of wood and placed up high. The city installed several of them across the city this year.



Thermal cameras can be used to see bats nestled in bridge crevices. (Emily Williams/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Cory Olson, program co-ordinator for the Alberta Bat Program, says another way to see how active an area is for bats is recording echolocation calls using specialized equipment.

These calls are at a frequency that cannot be heard by humans and are used for navigation. The sounds that bats make that we can hear are the social calls.

"You can imagine that if you're in a group with hundreds of other bats that you might get upset every now and then," Olson said. "So they emit this squeaking sound that kind of tells their roommate to back off."

Olson said if people stumble upon a bat roosting site, the best thing to do is leave it alone.

The bats in the city are fairly healthy for the time being, he said.

But white-nose syndrome is just starting to enter Alberta and may impact the province's bat population. Guano samples can be taken for testing to determine if the fungus that causes this disease is present.


A guano sample, collected to be tested for the fungus which causes white-nose syndrome. (Emily Williams/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Another threat to bats in the city is cats, Olson said.

"The majority of the bats that get brought to wildlife rescue centres are bats that have been injured by cats. Keeping cats indoors is one of the most important things that we can do to help bats in the city."

What you need to know about solar storms, the extreme weather of space

Story by Chris Knight • National Post 

An artist's conception of a solar storm that hit Earth in 1989, knocking out Quebec's power grid.© Provided by National Post


This week it was reported that a solar storm had struck the Earth a day ahead of schedule , for unknown reasons. Some speculated that the coronal mass ejection (CME) that was the cause of the storm was moving faster than expected. Others suggested it was an entirely different CME that had escaped our notice. Here’s what to know about solar storms.

What is a solar storm?

A solar storm is a disturbance on the surface of the sun, usually in the form of a large explosion called a solar flare, or a burst of plasma known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME. When the charged particles from the storm reach the Earth they interfere with our planet’s magnetic field in what’s known as a geomagnetic storm.
Are they dangerous?

Solar storms pose no direct risk to humans, as long as they’re shielded by the Earth’s atmosphere. So if you’re not in space, you’re fine. In fact, they make for great viewing of the Northern Lights, as the Earth’s auroral displays become brighter and are visible farther south than usual.

However, they can pose great risks to electrical and electronic equipment. On March 13, 1989, Hydro-Quebec experienced a complete blackout of its system due to a powerful solar storm. The solar particles couldn’t easily pass through the Canadian Shield and instead found an outlet through transmission lines. The province subsequently invested billions of dollars in toughening up its systems against future storms.

Even more powerful was the Carrington Event, a solar storm that hit the Earth in 1859 and remains the strongest one recorded to date. Telegraph operators reported sparking and even small fires in their equipment, while some disconnected their power sources and were still able to receive and transmit messages just by using the current passing through the atmosphere.

A solar storm in February of 2022 caused 40 SpaceX Starlink satellites to fail and fall back to Earth during launch, not because their electronics were fried, but because the storm caused Earth’s outer atmosphere to heat up and expand slightly, meaning the small satellites didn’t have enough fuel to reach orbit.

That said, it should be noted that solar storms tend to affect large-scale infrastructure such as power lines, and not individual devices like a cellphone, computer or car. In a recent interview with Scientific American , heliophysicist Erika Palmerio advised caution, not panic.

“As a person who works with this every day, I am way more scared of a ‘doomsday’ derived from terrestrial weather like forest fires, hurricanes and extreme weather,” she said. “We have to monitor, and we have to be prepared. But we do not have to lose sleep over this.”


A sunset on Mars. NASA’s rovers on the Red Planet have been used to observe parts of the sun not visible from Earth.© NASA

Can we predict solar storms?

Much like terrestrial weather, solar storms are unpredictable. But, like the weather, we can make forecasts and educated guesses. Solar flares and storms tend to reach their peak roughly every 11 years, as the sun goes through what’s known as a solar cycle. Solar cycle 1 started in 1755. We’re near the peak of solar cycle 25 now, expected to reach its maximum sometime between now and 2025. So the next few years are likely to see more and stronger solar storms.

It’s also worth noting that solar flares release energy at the speed of light, so there’s no advance warning for the eight minutes it takes their energy to reach us from the sun. Coronal mass ejections can take several days to reach Earth, so some warning is available.

Spacecraft like the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (launched in 2006) and the Parker Solar Probe (launched in 2018) are studying the sun and its corona to help scientists better understand their behaviour.

We’re also getting assistance from other planets. Currently, Mars is on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth, and so scientists have asked the Perseverance rover there to periodically take a peek at the sun and report back on any sunspot activity not visible from Earth. The Curiosity rover performed a similar task in 2015, near the previous solar maximum, although its cameras were not as sensitive.

The sun was 'smiling' in a NASA photo. It might be a warning

Solar Orbiter mission shares closest ever images of the sun

As water reuse expands, proponents battle the "yuck" factor

When Janet Cruz lost an April election for a Tampa City Council seat, she became a political casualty of an increasingly high-stakes debate over recycled water.

During her time in the Florida Legislature, Cruz had supported a new law allowing the use of treated wastewater in local water systems. But many Tampa residents were staunchly opposed to a plan by their water utility to do just that, and Cruz was forced to backtrack, with her spokesperson asserting she had never favored the type of complete water reuse known as "toilet to tap." She lost anyway, and the water plan has been canceled.

Tampa's showdown may be a harbinger of things to come as climate change and drought cause water shortages in many parts of the country. With few alternatives for expanding supply, cities and states are rapidly adding recycled water to their portfolios and expanding the ways in which it can be used. Researchers say it's safe — and that it's essential to move past the 20th century notion that wastewater must stay flushed.

"There is no reason to only use water once," said Peter Fiske, director of the National Alliance for Water Innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "We've got to be more clever with the water we've got."

But proponents are still fighting an uphill battle to overcome the "yuck" factor. A recent study found that reused water is not only safe but that it's actually cleaner than conventionally sourced water — yet acceptance is "hindered by perceptions of poor water quality and potential health threats."

Several projects were canceled in California in the 1990s because of such worries. In San Gabriel, Miller Brewing Company opposed a water reclamation project when people started joking about "beer aged in porcelain."

"You have to have a lot of education in a community to say why [recycled water] is needed" and what experts are doing to ensure the safety of the water, said Noelle George, the Texas managing director for the trade association WateReuse.

Many forms of water reuse have long been routine. Water from yard sprinklers, for example, soaks into the groundwater. Or, if it is processed in a treatment plant, it goes into a river or lake, where it's used again. Municipalities and others often use treated wastewater known as gray water for irrigation.

But in the world of water reuse, the gold standard is known as direct potable reuse — cleaning wastewater, including sewage, to drinking water standards.



Epic Cleantec operations director Ryan Pulley holds a beaker of treated wastewater, known as gray water, from a San Francisco apartment tower (left). It's cleaned to drinking water standards (right) and reused for the building's toilets, laundry, and irrigation. / Credit: Ted Wood© Provided by CBS News

THIS WAS ALSO DEVELOPED IN CANADA AND TESTED IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING IN TORONTO IN 1975 ACCORDING TO A DOCUMENTARY DONE BY THE NFB

With DPR systems, the water from showers, sinks, and toilets first goes to a conventional treatment plant, where it is disinfected with chemicals and aeration. Then it gets a second scrubbing in a multistage process that first uses a bioreactor to break down nitrogen compounds, then employs microfiltration to clean out particles and reverse osmosis to remove viruses, bacteria, and salts. Finally, hydrogen peroxide is added and the water goes through an ultraviolet light processing, which is supposed to kill any contaminants that are left.

Experts say the water that emerges at the end of this process is so clean it has no taste, and that minerals must be added to give the water flavor. It's also free of a little-known health hazard; chlorine, often used to disinfect conventional water, can react with organic material in the water to create chloroform, exposure to which can cause negative health effects.

Big Spring, Texas, is the only place in the country with a DPR municipal water system, in which all wastewater is treated and sent back to the tap. Another notable DPR system is the Changi Water Reclamation Plant in Singapore, which cleans 237 million gallons each day.

In Tampa, intense opposition focused on the high cost of the water treatment and the possible presence of pharmaceuticals, hormones, and so-called forever chemicals, known as PFAS.

"We have never thought that it was necessary to drink wastewater," said Gary Gibbons, the vice chair of the Tampa Bay Sierra Club, in September 2022. He said the project, which the city referred to by the acronym PURE, would result in contaminants in the drinking water and the groundwater aquifer.

Experts reject these concerns as uninformed and say properly treated wastewater is safer than a lot of conventional drinking water sources.

"I would almost rather have an advanced treatment plant of the type used for potable water recycling than water that comes from a river that has several cities and farms and industries upstream that are discharging into it," said David L. Sedlak, an expert on potable reuse at the University of California-Berkeley.

With higher temperatures and long-term pressure on water sources including aquifers and mountain snowpacks, a lot more water reuse is coming.

In Texas, the state permits DPR plants on a case-by-case basis, and the city of El Paso is building one that's slated to be online by 2026. Colorado last year began allowing DPR. In California, regulations spelling out the approach to DPR should be ready by the end of this year, with some cities setting goals of recycling all water by 2035. Florida and Arizona are also moving to expand direct potable reuse.

There's also a lot of activity around what's known as indirect potable reuse. Orange County, California, has the world's largest IPR facility, which cleans 130 million gallons of water a day to irrigation standards, passes it through advanced purification, and finally injects it into groundwater, which serves as an environmental buffer. The water is then piped to all municipal users.

San Francisco is pioneering another approach. Since 2015, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which operates the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts that deliver water from the Sierra Nevada to the city, has required all buildings over 100,000 square feet be equipped for recycling gray water. The downtown Salesforce Tower has its own recycling plant: Sinks, laundry machines, and showers drain into the basement recycling system, and the water is then reused for flushing toilets and irrigation, saving about 30,000 gallons a day.

"We don't need to flush toilets with drinking water," said Fiske, noting that toilets make up about 30% of all water use.

San Francisco water officials are studying the feasibility and safety of cleaning all wastewater to potable standards at the building level. The headquarters of the water utility has a blackwater system called the Living Machine that uses engineered wetlands in the sidewalks around the building to treat wastewater, cutting water use by two-thirds. (Blackwater systems recycle water from toilets; gray water systems reuse water from all other drains.)

Some experts see a day when buildings will not have to be hooked up to external sewer and water systems at all, with advanced recycling systems augmented by rainwater. For the moment, though, educational campaigns are still needed to bring recycled water into the mainstream.

Epic Cleantec, which created a recycling system for a new San Francisco apartment tower, thought beer might help. The company last year teamed up with a local brewery to produce beer from recycled water. The Epic OneWater Brew by Devil's Canyon Brewing isn't sold; rather, it's a demonstration product, given away and served at events.

While people might not want to drink recycled water, they will usually try the beer.

"We made beer out of recycled water, because we're trying to change the conversation," said Aaron Tartakovsky, CEO of Epic Cleantec. "We're fundamentally trying to help people rethink how our communities handle water."

This article was produced by KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

American Airlines pilots' union accepts sweetened labor deal

Story by Leslie Josephs • CNBC

American Airlines' pilots union has accepted a sweetened labor deal.

The union had a preliminary agreement but a richer deal at United Airlines derailed voting.

Pilots at both United and American still need to vote on their tentative agreements.

American Airlines plane© Provided by CNBC

American Airlines pilots' union said Thursday that they agreed to a sweetened offer for a new labor contract, less than two weeks after a richer deal at rival United Airlines derailed voting at American.

The new preliminary agreement includes pay matching with United, whose pilots are on track to get about 40% raises over four years, and at Delta Air Lines, whose aviators approved their contract in March, as well as other improvements. American CEO Robert Isom last week increased the company's offer by about $1 billion.

"We appreciate the Allied Pilots Association for its collaborative work to reach an updated agreement on a four-year contract for American's pilots," American said in a statement. "It's a contract we're proud of and one our pilots deserve."

American's pilots would start voting on the new deal in August.

The deal is the latest in the transportation industry where workers are seeking, and getting, higher wages. A shortage of pilots has emboldened unions to seek bigger raises and other improvements after the pandemic stalled negotiations.

UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters earlier this week struck a preliminary labor agreement to raise pay for more than 300,000 workers, a deal that averted a massive strike that could have rippled throughout the U.S. economy. Workers will vote on that deal next month.

What it was like to live at the Los Alamos lab site during the Manhattan Project


Jenny McGrath
Tue, July 25, 2023

The Los Alamos Ranch School buildings in 1942, which became part of the Los Alamos Project Y site.

National Security Research Center

In 1943, hundreds of people converged on a desert in New Mexico to work on the Manhattan Project.


Building the atomic bomb required a furious working pace and the utmost secrecy.


It also forever changed the landscape of Los Alamos and the lives of its residents.

Though Los Alamos was just one of many sites dedicated to the Manhattan Project, it was the most remote, and the most secret.

Located in the desert, it has mountain views and vivid sunsets. It's where scientists prepared the bomb for the Trinity Test.

Initially, J. Robert Oppenheimer thought he'd only need a few dozen scientists to complete the job. The number quickly rose, and Los Alamos became a boom town.

By 1945, the population had grown to over 8,000 and included military personnel, engineers, technicians, and scientists' families.

Heading it all was Oppenheimer, an enigmatic figure who inspired loyalty but was difficult to know.

Physicist Abraham Pais wrote, "In all my life I have never known a personality more complex than Robert Oppenheimer," which may explain, he thought, "why different people reacted to him in such extremely varied ways."

Some loved him. Some loathed him.

He personally recruited a number of scientists to come to Los Alamos, which was known as Project Y. It wasn't easy.

"The notion of disappearing into the New Mexico desert for an indeterminate period and under quasi-military auspices disturbed a good many scientists and the families of many more," Oppenheimer later wrote.

But, he said, they knew that their work could determine the outcome of the war and that "this job, if it were achieved, would be a part of history."

Over two dozen Nobel Prize winners, current and future, contributed to the Manhattan Project.

But there were also local people who worked as janitors, construction workers, house cleaners, and child-care workers. They experienced a very different Los Alamos after the scientists' and military's arrival.
The allure of the landscape

Many accounts include nostalgia-tinged reminiscences of the landscape.

The school was located "on a mesa high above the valley, with steep, straight sides streaked with gold and red, with a pale-green top, the color of pine trees covered by the dust that the wind whirls up from the desert below," Laura Fermi, Enrico Fermi's wife, wrote in her autobiography.

Physicist Robert Wilson wrote that he "never tired of that view."

The main campus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1998.

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Situated 7,300 feet above sea level and roughly 35 miles from Santa Fe, the Los Alamos site seemed ideal for a secret laboratory. In addition to being isolated, the school was difficult to reach, accessible only by a twisty gravel road.

But there was plenty of space and weather suitable for year-round construction. Thus, it met the criteria stipulated by Gen. Leslie Groves, the project's director.

The government paid $424,971 for the Los Alamos Ranch School and nearly 50,000 acres of surrounding land. It also displaced 32 homesteaders in the surrounding areas who were paid far less for their land.

Constant construction

Compared to the Chicago labs, where some of the work on the Manhattan Project was being done, Los Alamos was starting from scratch.

Its scientists needed to ship in a cyclotron, accelerators, generators and other necessary equipment from various universities. Initially, the theoretical physicists had to set up in a makeshift chicken coop.

John Henry Manley, a physicist, later wondered that if Oppenheimer had known that experiential physics is "really 90% plumbing," if he would've decided to set up the lab at such a secluded site.

The commissary is where many Los Alamos residents did most of their grocery shopping during the Manhattan Project.

National Security Research Center

Construction was nearly constant to keep up with the influx of people. Trucks rumbled down the roads, and building materials lay heaped in piles around the site, Laura Fermi wrote. She recalled how easy it was to get lost because all the buildings looked alike, painted the same green, and there were no street names.

Over the course of the Manhattan Project, workers would construct over 600 housing units, including dozens of dormitories and barracks for unmarried personnel and the military. There were also dorms for married couples whose jobs weren't as well-paid as the scientists'.

The most coveted houses were originally part of the school. They came to be nicknamed "Bathtub Row" because the newer houses only had showers.

"They were attractive, well-built cottages, far more desirable than any later building," Laura Fermi wrote.

The homes' residents, including Oppenheimer, lent a certain caché to the area, too.

Creating a small city required more than just housing. Schools, courts, stores, a post office, a fire department, and a hospital all eventually appeared. Los Alamos also needed veterinarians for the Military Police's horses, dentists, doctors, and garbage collectors.

The "Technical Area" was a top-secret space that required workers to show a special badge at the guard house. Administrative buildings, labs, and warehouses clustered around a pond where the school's students used to ice skate. All were sequestered behind a chain-link fence.

Physicist McAllister Hull described it as "fences within fences" because the entire site was enclosed.

Secrecy was paramount

Part of adjusting to life at Los Alamos was getting used to all the secrecy. New arrivals were fingerprinted and photographed. They received New Mexico driver's licenses. Their names were listed as numbers, signatures weren't required, and instead of an address, they read, "Special List B."

The entrance to the Los Alamos lab's Tech Area in 1951.

National Security Research Center

Both incoming and outgoing mail went through censors. Correspondents had to address letters to P.O. Box 1663. Residents' mail was routed through another town before being sent to friends and family.

Richard Feynman's wife sent him a letter complaining about the censors watching. Officials told him to ask her not to mention censorship. When he did, they returned his letter and said he had to inform her without mentioning censorship himself.

"How in the heck am I going to do it?" he asked them.

The average age of Los Alamos' residents was mid-20s. For the 80 babies born in the project's first year, the same P.O. box number where their mail was sent was also put on their birth certificates.

A poem poked fun at Groves' annoyance at the number of newborns: "He thought you'd be scientific / Instead you're just prolific."

In the early days, physicist Robert Serber delivered an orientation lecture to about 30 people about the project. Carpenters and electricians were hard at work. When Serber mentioned the bomb, Oppenheimer instructed John Manley to tell Serber to say "gadget" in case the workers overheard.

Fatigue and fighting

In their memoirs and interviews, some scientists' wives claimed not to have known what their husbands were working on.

Leon Fisher brought red and green detonator casings home for his child to play with. Phyllis, his wife, used them to trim a Christmas tree. Later, she reflected on the irony of decorating an evergreen, a symbol of renewal, with "messengers of death."

"Ignorance had sanctioned that strange combination," she wrote.

The secrecy, the stress, and the long hours all contributed to a tense atmosphere that could set everyone on edge.

"Rank, housing assignments, the part of town in which one lived, social invitations, administrative assignments, everything became important, occasionally in a childish way," Emile Segré later wrote.

The atmosphere also strained marriages. "In the past, Leon had always patiently described his scientific projects or research to me," Phyllis Fisher wrote. "But this time he made it absolutely clear that I wasn't to ask and, if I did, he wasn't about to answer."

It was especially difficult when their husbands wouldn't come home at night, Ruth Marshak later said. "The Tech Area was a great pit which swallowed our scientist husbands out of sight, almost out of our lives," she wrote.

Someone told Elsie McMillan that the scientists were working on a weapon. It helped, she said, because "I could better understand when my husband left me" and why they all "looked so drawn, so tired, so worried."

A life of 'hectivity'

For Los Alamos's wealthier citizens, the rustic conditions took some adjustment.

Water was always in short supply, and residents were supposed to only shower for a couple of minutes.

Some of the houses had wood-burning stoves that were tricky to get used to. Some preferred to use hot plates, though those wouldn't work during the frequent power outages.

Physicist Enrico Fermi, second from right, took advantage of the area's mountains to ski.

National Security Research Center

Many other conveniences were lacking, as well. "No mailman, no milkman, no laundryman, no paper boy knocked at our doors," wrote Jane Wilson, the wife of physicist Robert Wilson. "There were no telephones in our homes."

In May 1943, Charlotte Serber, who worked in the secret library, Kitty Oppenheimer, and other wives, coordinated the busing in of indigenous and Hispanic women from the surrounding areas. They cleaned houses and provided childcare for $1.50 per half-day.

As Los Alamos grew, the need for technicians and other personnel increased, and many of the women went to work in labs or administration.

In her book "Land of Nuclear Enchantment: A New Mexican History of the Nuclear Weapons Industry", Lucie Genay notes that residents often felt they'd entered a "devil's bargain… torn between employment issues and the negative effects of the industry."

To relieve some of the pressure, scientists and their families would go on picnics or hikes, ski, or ride horses.

Physicist Edward Teller joked it was like a wildlife reserve for physicists. The number of parties, dances, concerts, and other events were so plentiful that Bernice Brode, wife of physicist Robert Brode, referred to the packed schedule as "hectivity."

One of the women who worked as a "computer," doing computations, Jean Bacher, wrote that "Quiet evenings at home, then, were the exception rather than the rule," and they found much-needed "release in alcohol and fresh air."

Shangri-La

Many memoirs and reminiscences of Los Alamos during this era refer to it as Shangri-La, a kind of mystical utopia in the mountains.

Phyllis Fisher wondered if they were more like the patients in Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain," philosophizing and secluded from the rest of the world.

"As they argued, the countries below their mountain were preparing for World War I, which suddenly exploded all around their sanctuary," Fisher wrote. "Were we doing the same thing?"

The site's residents couldn't shut out the world in August 1945, after the US dropped the atomic bombs, which were tested and assembled at Los Alamos, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 100,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more died from illnesses related to radiation exposure in the decades that followed.

New Mexicans living around the Trinity Test site say they too have suffered ill effects from radiation.

Mary Palvesky is the daughter of Harry Palevsky and Elaine Sammel, who both worked at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. For her book, "Atomic Fragments," Palvesky spoke with some of the Manhattan Project's prominent scientists, including Edward Teller, Robert Wilson, and Joseph Rotblat, about their complicated feelings about the bomb.

Many scientists in the Chicago Met Lab, another location working on the bomb, had signed a petition opposing its use, especially without warning Japan about its destructive power.

But Hans Bethe told Pavlevsky that he felt that demonstrating the bomb beforehand would not have led to the country's surrender. Yet decades later, he also wrote an open letter asking other scientists not to develop, improve, or manufacture any type of weapon of mass destruction.

Using nuclear weapons now, Bethe told Palvesky in 1995, would be entirely different from using them during World War II.

"It would not be the end of the war," he said. "It would be the beginning," and would lead to the destruction of multiple countries.

After the US dropped the bombs, the site became the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Many of the scientists moved away, back to Chicago or Berkeley or New York.

But some former residents couldn't return home. In 1975, security guards accompanied Marcos and Maria Gómez to their former ranch they sold to the US government. It was then a detonator testing ground.

"Both of us cried," they recalled. "We spent some of our best years there."

Read the original article on Business Insider

SHARK WEEK 

Massachusetts ‘one of largest shark hotspots in world,’ study finds



Frank O'Laughlin
Thu, July 27, 2023

The findings of a landmark population study of great white sharks off Cape Cod indicated that Massachusetts is “one of the largest shark hotspots in the world,” with hundreds upon hundreds of the apex predators visiting local waters in recent years.

A team of scientists from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries conducted an intensive mark-recapture survey to estimate the size of the newest white shark hotspot, which represents the first estimate of white shark abundance ever produced in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Great white shark jumps out of water off Cape Cod to snatch striped bass on fishing line

Researchers, utilizing the mark-recapture methods, determined that about 800 sharks visited the waters off the Cape from 2015 to 2018, according to a new publication in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

“Mark-recapture methods use repeated surveys of uniquely marked animals to estimate population size. In the case of white sharks, individuals can be distinguished based on unique markings and notches in their dorsal fins,” researchers noted in the study.

A total of 339 individual white sharks were identified by experts who combed through nearly 3,000 videos captured over the course of 137 research trips to Cape Cod beaches.

Whale watch group captures video of shark devouring seal off Cape Cod

“The estimate provides an important baseline that can be used to monitor the performance of conservation measures for the broader population, which declined by as much as 80% as fishing pressure increased in the 1970s and 1980s,” said Megan Winton, lead author of the study. “Cape Cod is the only area in the region where researchers can feasibly monitor the population, and our estimates suggest that the Cape is among the larger white shark hotspots worldwide, which is good news from a conservation standpoint.”

The researchers also found that white shark numbers along Cape Cod peaked in the late summer and early fall, when water temperatures are warmest, and declined as sharks migrate out of the area for the winter.

While the risk of a negative encounter with a shark is low, the increased presence and population of white sharks off Cape Cod underscores the need for ongoing research, public safety initiatives, and education programs in the region, researchers stressed.

Boeing and NASA partner with Alaska and other airlines on eco-friendly X-66A aircraft

Alan Boyle
Tue, July 25, 2023 

An artist’s conception shows the planned livery for the X-66A research aircraft. (Boeing Illustration)

Boeing and NASA say they’ll collaborate with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and four other major airlines on the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, which aims to put Boeing’s innovative X-66 braced-wing aircraft design through flight tests in the 2028-2029 time frame.

The X-66A makes use of a concept known as the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing, or TTBW, which features ultra-long, ultra-thin, drag-reducing wings that are stabilized by diagonal struts.

The demonstrator aircraft will also incorporate parallel advancements in propulsion systems, materials and system architecture. When all those factors are combined, the single-aisle X-66A should reduce fuel requirements and carbon emissions by up to 30% relative to today’s domestic airplane fleet.


In January, NASA announced that it would invest $425 million in the project over the course of seven years under the terms of a Space Act Agreement. Boeing and its partners would contribute the remainder of the funding covered by the agreement, estimated at about $725 million.

Under the partnership announced today during the EAA Adventure Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin, Boeing will receive input relating to operational efficiencies, maintenance, handling characteristics and airport compatibility from Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.

The X-66A demonstrator aircraft is an MD-90 airliner that’s undergoing modifications at a Boeing facility in Palmdale, Calif. Airline operations and management teams will have a chance to assess the airplane while it’s being modified. Airline pilots will be able to check the X-66A’s handling characteristics virtually, using a flight simulator.

Eventually, the innovations pioneered by the X-66A are expected to become incorporated into the designs for future commercial airliners.

Fashion statements for electric airplanes

An artist’s conception shows the planned liveries for the hybrid electric demonstrator aircraft being developed by GE Aerospace and magniX with funding from NASA. (NASA Illustration)

Boeing and NASA unveiled the livery for the X-66A today at EAA Adventure, but that wasn’t the only sneak peek provided in Oshkosh. GE Aerospace and Everett, Wash.-based magniX showed off the paint schemes for the hybrid electric aircraft they plan to fly as part of NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project.

MagniX is partnering with Seattle-based AeroTEC and Canada’s Air Tindi to test its hybrid electric powertrain on a modified DeHavilland Dash 7 airplane in Moses Lake, Wash. In 2021, NASA awarded $74.3 million to magniX to support development of the powertrain.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati-based GE Aerospace is working with Boeing and Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing subsidiary, to develop a megawatt-class powertrain for a modified Saab 340B demonstrator aircraft. GE received a $179 million award from NASA for the project.

NASA is targeting at least two flight demonstrations within the next five years, with the intention of helping to bring electrified aircraft propulsion systems to the U.S. commercial fleet in the 2030-2035 time frame.
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