India's adorable, dog-sized moon rover did its first science on the moon by shooting powerful laser beams at the surface


Sonam Sheth,Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Tue, August 29, 2023 

The Pragyaan rover will be the first robot to drive around on the lunar south pole. What will it find?

Indian Space Research Organization

India's moon rover made its first scientific observation on the lunar south pole.

The 57-pound rover is called Pragyaan — a Hindu name meaning one who possesses wisdom.

Pragyaan has confirmed the presence of sulfur as well as detected other elements.

India made history by becoming the first country to land successfully on the lunar south pole. And its lunar rover wasted no time in rolling out to make its first scientific observations.

On Tuesday, the Indian Space Research Organization announced on its website that the moon rover had confirmed the presence of sulphur. And preliminary analyses also suggest the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium, and titanium.

Suffice it to say, the rover's been busy. This adorable rover is called Pragyaan — a Hindu name meaning one who possesses greater knowledge and wisdom.

Pragyaan weighs 57 pounds, about the size of a small German shepherd or bull terrier, and it's spending two weeks driving where no robot or human has been before.

Pragyaan's science could be critical for learning how to mine moon water — a goal every moon-minded nation is eyeing.

The rover may be small and cute, but India's new moon mission "definitely puts them on the international stage as an emerging space power," Robert Braun, head of space exploration at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, told Insider.
What will India's moon rover do next?

It's equipped with a laser and an alpha-particle beam to help it study the composition of the lunar south pole, which is of particular interest.

The Vikram lander is the first robot to successfully land on the lunar south pole. Inside, it carried the Pragyaan lunar rover, which rolls out and down to the ground on the ramp shown here.

Indian Space Research Organisation

The lunar south pole is thought to be the most water-rich region on the moon. That's critical since water ice could be mined to produce breathable oxygen for future crewed lunar bases, as well as hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel that could propel future missions to Mars and beyond.

The rover will also use its RAMBHA and ILSA payloads on board to study the lunar atmosphere as well as dig up samples for additional analysis of the surface's composition, per Times of India.

But it was the rover's Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument that ultimately made the first-ever measurements of the lunar south pole's composition, ISRO reported. The laser fires intense pulses at the lunar surface, which generates an extremely hot plasma.

That's where a trick of physics comes in handy: Each element on the periodic table emits a unique set of wavelengths of light. Scientists can study the light from the plasma to identify those wavelength sets and determine the chemical make-up of the stuff on the moon.

A moment for the history books

India is the fourth country — after Russia, the US, and China — to land on the moon.

"It's a huge achievement for the whole nation," Braun said. "Last time they got to the playoffs, if you will, and this time they won the Super Bowl."

"Everyone in the space community is joining with the nation of India, and their talented engineers and scientists, and celebrating their success and this achievement," he added

India Prevents Moon Rover From Falling Into Hole

Victor Tangermann
Tue, August 29, 2023


Close Call

Last week, India became only the fourth country to ever land on the Moon, with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) proudly announcing its Vikram lander had safely touched down near the Moon's south pole.

It was a treacherous journey from lunar orbit, which many other countries haven't survived — like Russia, whose Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the surface just a week prior.

Yet the lander and its much smaller rover companion Pragyaan, which rolled down a ramp to the surface below shortly after touchdown, are still in a hazardous off-world environment. In fact, the six-wheeled rover recently encountered an obstacle in the form of a ten-foot crater that seemingly threatened to swallow it whole.

Fortunately, ground control spotted the danger before it was too late.

"On August 27, 2023, the Rover came across a 4-meter diameter crater positioned 3 meters ahead of its location," ISRO wrote in a tweet. "The Rover was commanded to retrace the path. It's now safely heading on a new path."

https://twitter.com/isro/status/1696117102393081997?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1696117102393081997%7Ctwgr%5E78d3eb75d39e9e80902e55ae894a44d65f05d3d2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fin.mashable.com%2Fspace%2F59137%2Fclose-call-indias-moon-rover-just-avoided-a-treacherous-crater

Hole Milk

The update also featured two glorious black-and-white images, one showing the deep and shadowed chasm that seemingly blocks the angled rays of the Sun. A second image shows Pragyaan's rover tracks.

Other than having India join the exclusive club of countries that have landed on the Moon — which also includes the US, the Soviet Union, and China — the country's ongoing Chandrayaan-3 mission also represents the first successful landing near the lunar south pole.

That's particularly exciting, as scientists suspect the region to be rich in water ice, which could make it a key site for future efforts to establish a long term presence on the lunar surface.

In short, let's hope the scientists at the ISRO keep their eyes peeled. Having Pragyaan tumble into a crater could make for a premature end to a groundbreaking mission.

More on the mission: Amazing Footage Shows Indian Rover Ramping Down to the Lunar Surface

India's moon rover confirms sulfur and detects several other elements near the lunar south pole

ASHOK SHARMA
Updated Tue, August 29, 2023







This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water. (ISRO via AP)

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements near the lunar south pole as it searches for signs of frozen water nearly a week after its historic moon landing, India’s space agency said Tuesday.

The rover's laser-induced spectroscope instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, said in a post on its website.

The lunar rover had come down a ramp from the lander of India’s spacecraft after last Wednesday’s touchdown near the moon’s south pole. The Chandrayan-3 Rover is expected to conduct experiments over 14 days, the ISRO has said.

The rover "unambiguously confirms the presence of sulfur,” ISRO said. It also is searching for signs of frozen water that could help future astronaut missions, as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.

The rover also will study the moon's atmosphere and seismic activity, ISRO Chairman S. Somnath said.

On Monday, the rover's route was reprogrammed when it came close to a 4-meter-wide (13-foot-wide) crater. "It’s now safely heading on a new path," the ISRO said.

The craft moves at a slow speed of around 10 centimeters (4 inches) per second to minimize shock and damage to the vehicle from the moon's rough terrain.

After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India last week joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve this milestone.

The successful mission showcases India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with the image that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to project: an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.

The mission began more than a month ago at an estimated cost of $75 million.

India’s success came just days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for the same lunar region, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It would have been the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years. Russia’s head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States.

James Webb Space Telescope gazes into the Whirlpool galaxy's hypnotic spiral arms (photos)

Monisha Ravisetti
Tue, August 29, 2023 

vibrant orange spiral galaxy with bright shining central star


With a hypnotic new image released on Tuesday (Aug. 29), the James Webb Space Telescope allows us to gaze within a spiral galaxy floating some 27 million light-years away from Earth.

It's a vibrant snapshot representing a realm named M51 (also known as NGC 5194 or the Whirlpool galaxy) that brilliantly captures the rocky relationship this galaxy has with its nearby neighbor, a dwarf galaxy named NGC 5195. It is, in fact, partially because of this galactic interaction that M51 may have such an ornate pattern in the first place.

"The gravitational influence of M51's smaller companion is thought to be partially responsible for the stately nature of the galaxy's prominent and distinct spiral arms," the European Space Agency said in a statement about the visual.

And on the note of those stunning spiral arms, one intriguing fact about M51 is its winding structure dubs it a "grand-design" galaxy rather than just a standard spiral galaxy.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble will help NASA's Juno probe study Jupiter's volcanic moon Io

While a typical spiral galaxy exhibits vortexed arms like M51 as well, grand-design spirals constitute about one-tenth of all spiral galaxies and possess very strongly defined arms that stem from a clear core region. Naturally, this makes them quite beautiful to look at from our vantage point on Earth. (It's technically up for debate whether our Milky Way is a grand-design galaxy as well).

ESA even calls M51 one of the most "photogenic galaxies in amateur and professional astronomy." As you can see, it's been a cosmic inspiration for as far back as 2001.
So, what am I looking at here?

To image M51, the JWST tapped into two of its powerful infrared instruments: The Mid-Infrared Instrument and the Near-Infrared Camera. This, as you may expect, provided two separate perspectives on the galactic subject (though there is a composite image that combines the two).

Like their names suggest, both devices are built to capture the distant universe by decoding infrared light signals emanating from faraway stars and galaxies. Once such signals manage to make their way to the telescope's gold-plated, hexagonal mirrors, they're reflected onto the sensors which can then parse the data for us. This bit is actually why the JWST is considered to be such a big deal – human eyes cannot see infrared light (we can only see visible light) and so this machine is literally programmed to decode the invisible universe for us.

But what this means is, as with all JWST images, both M51 portraits have been colorized.

Yet the reason scientists infused such coffee-colored hues and allowed for shimmering white accents in these images of M51 goes far beyond aesthetics. Scientific artistry like this helps bring out some important details that may otherwise go unnoticed, blurred into the rest of the scene.

The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image

For instance, the dark red features in the NIRCam image, according to ESA, indicate warm filamentary dust in the realm while oranges and yellows show spots of ionized gas that were spurred by recently formed star clusters. "Stellar feedback has a dramatic effect on the medium of the galaxy and creates complex networks of bright knots as well as cavernous black bubbles," the agency explained.

Stellar feedback refers to the way stars pour energy into their surroundings, resulting in various processes that can dictate things like the rate of formation for other budding stars.

The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image

In the MIRI-centric image of M51, by contrast, empty cavities and bright filaments appear to alternate, presenting the impression of ripples propagating from the spiral arms. It also indicates a much more dramatic filamentary structure in general when compared to the NIRCam image. This is because certain light fragments associated with dust grains and molecules, the agency says, "illuminate the cold gas of the galaxy." Perhaps a welcome reminder that, despite some minor glitches the JWST team has reported with regard to MIRI, the instrument remains in good health.

And putting both the MIRI and NIRCam images together, scientists developed a composite photo that overlays all of those remarkable nuances.

The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image

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Part of a series of observations known as Feedback in Emerging Extragalactic Star Clusters, or FEAST, these observations "were designed to shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside our own galaxy," the agency said.

It was 2011 when a Hubble Space Telescope view of M51, taken in the visible light we can see, enticed scientists with its grandeur. Almost poetically, the team behind that whirlpool portrait stated that "although Hubble is providing incisive views of the internal structure of galaxies such as M51, the planned James Webb Space Telescope is expected to produce even crisper images."

Well, here we are.

JWST observations explore the structure of the Ring Nebula

by Tomasz Nowakowski , Phys.org

Image of the Ring Nebula taken with JWST's NIRCam instrument. 

Credit: Wesson et al., 2023.

An international team of astronomers has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the planetary nebula NGC 6720, better known as the Ring Nebula. The observational campaign, described in a paper on the pre-print server arXiv, has revealed a wealth of structural detail in this nebula.

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are expanding shells of gas and dust that have been ejected from a star during the process of its evolution from a main sequence star into a red giant or white dwarf. They are relatively rare, but are important for astronomers studying the chemical evolution of stars and galaxies.

Located some 2,600 light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Lyra, the Ring Nebula is a well-known PN with a complex morphology. Its star is a white dwarf with a mass of at least 0.58 solar masses, effective temperature of 135,000 K and luminosity at a level of 310 solar luminosities. Previous observations have found that the white dwarf is currently in the phase of rapid fading and that the part of the ionized nebula is likely recombining.

In mid-2022, a group of astronomers led by Roger Wesson of Cardiff University, UK, observed the Ring Nebula with JWST, aiming to get more insights into its nature. The observations were carried out as part of the Cycle 1 General Observers (GO) program.

"We report here on JWST imaging of the Ring Nebula, NGC 6720, using 13 filters from 1.6 µm to 25µm," the researchers wrote in the paper.

The images revealed that the Ring Nebula has an inner cavity and a shell in which some 20,000 dense clumps contain up to half the total mass. The imagery also unveiled the presence of a thin ring of possible polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission, and a halo that contains around 10 concentric arcs and 400 spikes.

By analyzing the obtained images, the astronomers found that the central cavity contains highly ionized gas and showcases two linear structures. In general, the cavity appears to have an approximately circular structure, with a radius of about 25 arcseconds. The shell surrounding this cavity is a broad region with a well-defined inner and outer edge, exhibiting an elliptical shape.

It turned out that the center of the Ring Nebula is offset by two arcseconds to the north-west from the central star. The astronomers suppose that such an offset may be caused by the original mass loss, the ionization and the hot stellar wind.

When it comes to the central star, JWST observations found that it is a triple system. Based on the images, the researchers found that the star has a binary companion at some 35 AU, and a distant, common proper motion companion at some 14,400 AU, which is assumed to be a low-mass M2–M4 main sequence star.

According to the authors of the paper, their findings confirm that PNe in general may contain a large variety of structures and phases, from highly ionized hot gas to dense molecular clumps.

More information: R. Wesson et al, JWST observations of the Ring Nebula (NGC 6720): I. Imaging of the rings, globules, and arcs, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2308.09027

Journal information: arXiv

 © 2023 Science X NetworkWebb reveals intricate details in the remains of a dying star

Opinion

New theory suggests universe is twice as old as previously believed

Rajendra Gupta, University of Ottawa

UPI

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, August 29, 2023

New research proposes a model that determines the universe’s age to be 26.7 billion years, which accounts for the James Webb Space Telescope’s "impossible early galaxy" observations. The telescope captured this Pillars of Creation image last year. 

File image courtesy of NASA/ESA


Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Early universe observations by the James Webb Space Telescope cannot be explained by current cosmological models. These models estimate the universe to be 13.8 billion years in age, based on the big-bang expanding universe concept.

My research proposes a model that determines the universe's age to be 26.7 billion years, which accounts for the JWST's "impossible early galaxy" observations.

Impossible early galaxies refer to the fact that some galaxies dating to the cosmic dawn -- 500 to 800 million years after the big bang -- have discs and bulges similar to those that have passed through a long period of evolution. And smaller in size galaxies are apparently more massive than larger ones, which is quite the opposite of expectation.

Frequency and distance

This age estimate is derived from the universe's expansion rate by measuring the redshift of spectral lines in the light emitted by distant galaxies. An earlier explanation of the redshift was based on the hypothesis that light loses energy as it travels cosmic distances. This "tired light" explanation was rejected as it could not explain many observations.

Data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, have raised new questions about the age of the universe. File 

Photo by M. Pedoussaut/ESA/NASA

The redshift of light is similar to the Doppler effect on sound: Noises appear to have higher frequency (pitch) when approaching, and lower when receding. Redshift, a lower light frequency, indicates when an object is receding from us; the larger the galaxy distance, the higher the recessional speed and redshift.

An alternative explanation for the redshift was due to the Doppler effect: Distant galaxies are receding from us at speeds proportional to their distance, indicating that the universe is expanding. The expanding universe model became favored by most astronomers after two astronomers working for Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, accidentally discovered cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, which the steady-state model could not satisfactorily explain.

The rate of expansion essentially determines the age of the universe. Until the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s, uncertainty in the expansion rate estimated the universe's age ranging from 7 billion to 20 billion years. Other observations led to the accepted value of 13.8 billion years, putting the big-bang model on the cosmology pedestal.

Limitations of previous models

Research published last year proposed to resolve the impossible early galaxy problem using the tired light model. However, tired light cannot satisfactorily explain other cosmological observations like supernovae redshifts and uniformity of the cosmic microwave background.

I attempted to combine the standard big-bang model with the tired light model to see how it fits the supernovae data and the JWST data, but it did not fit the latter well. It did, however, increase the universe's age to 19.3 billion years.

Next, I tried creating a hybrid model comprising the tired light and a cosmological model I had developed based on the evolving coupling constants proposed by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1937. This fitted both the data well, but almost doubled the universe's age.

The new model stretches galaxy formation time 10- to 20-fold over the standard model, giving enough time for the formation of well-evolved "impossible" early galaxies as observed.

As with any model, it will need to provide a satisfactory explanation for all those observations that are satisfied by the standard cosmological model.

Mixing models

The approach of mixing two models to explain new observations is not new. Isaac Newton considered that light propagates as particles in his theory of light, which prevailed until it was replaced by the wave theory of light in the 19th century to explain diffraction patterns observed with monochromatic light.

Albert Einstein resurrected the particle-like nature of light to explain the photoelectric effect -- that light has dual characteristics: particle-like in some observations and wave-like in others. It has since become well-established that all particles have such dual characteristics.

Another way of measuring the age of the universe is to estimate the age of stars in globular clusters in our own galaxy -- the Milky Way. Globular clusters include up to a million stars, all of which appear to have formed at the same time in the early universe.

Assuming all galaxies and clusters started to form simultaneously, the age of the oldest star in the cluster should provide the age of the universe (less the time when the galaxies began to form). For some stars such as Methuselah, believed to be oldest in the galaxy, astrophysical modeling yields an age greater than the age of the universe determined using the standard model, which is impossible.

Einstein believed that the universe is the same observed from any point at any time -- homogeneous, isotropic and timeless. To explain the observed redshift of distant galaxies in such a steady-state universe, which appeared to increase in proportion to their distance (Hubble's law), Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky, proposed the tired light theory in 1929.

New information

While some Hubble Space Telescope observations did point toward the impossible early galaxy problem, it was not until the launch of JWST in December 2021, and the data it provided since mid-2022, that this problem was firmly established.

To defend the standard big-bang model, astronomers have tried to resolve the problem by compressing the timeline for forming massive stars and primordial black holes accreting mass at unphysically high rates.

However, a consensus is developing toward new physics to explain these JWST observations.

The Conversation

Rajendra Gupta is an adjunct professor in physics at the University of Ottawa.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Explainer-Japan's moon landing: When is it and why is it important?

Reuters
Mon, August 28, 2023 
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's space agency on Monday postponed the planned launch of what it hopes will become the first Japanese spacecraft to land on the moon due to strong, high-altitude winds.

Japan aims to launch the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) into space by mid-September with a lunar landing seen starting as early as January 2024.

Japan would become the fifth country to achieve a moon landing after the United States, the former USSR, China and now India. The success of India's Chandrayaan-3 moon exploration mission this month contrasts with recent setbacks in Japan's space missions.

WHAT IS JAPAN'S LUNAR MISSION?

More than two decades in development, the SLIM project is focused on using advanced, image-based navigation technology and lightweight hardware to achieve a high-precision landing.

Dubbed "moon sniper", SLIM is designed to land no more than 100 metres from its targeted site. That's a giant leap from the conventional accuracy of several kilometres for lunar landers, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

By building a lightweight lander, JAXA aims to reduce launch costs and allow more frequent missions. SLIM weighs a little more than 700 kg (1,540 lb) at launch, or less than half of India's Chandrayaan-3.

It uses an efficient chemical propulsion system and includes miniaturised electronic devices.

SLIM's overall development cost about 15 billion yen ($102 million) as of this year. India launched its lander with a budget of about $75 million.

WHY IS THE TECHNOLOGY IMPORTANT?

The "pinpoint" landing technology enables a more granular search of rocks and water resources and boosts the spacecraft's chance of survival by helping it select the best location for solar power generation and avoid rough terrain, JAXA says.

SLIM is set to land on the slope of the Shioli crater near lunar sea Mare Nectaris. The site was selected based on high-resolution images from lunar orbiters.

SLIM employs "vision-based navigation" to recognise where it is flying during the landing phase, JAXA says. That allows the craft to match real-time images from its camera with existing ones of the lunar surface.

WHY IS JAPAN'S SPACE PROGRAMME IMPORTANT?

Although 14 Japanese astronauts have been into space - the fourth most after the U.S., Russia (including the former Soviet Union) and China - Japan's space missions have focused on developing launchers and space probes and have relied on the United States and Russia to carry astronauts.

Japan aims to send an astronaut to the moon's surface in the latter half of the 2020s as part of NASA's Artemis programme.

Japan's advanced image technology, like that used in SLIM, is seen as a key part of its response to China's growing military presence in space.

WHAT ABOUT RECENT SETBACKS?

The launch of SLIM was delayed for a few months after JAXA manually destroyed the initial model of the new medium-lift H3 rocket due to engine ignition trouble after launching in March.

JAXA also failed in the launch of an Epsilon small rocket in October 2022, followed by an engine explosion during a test last month.

The government says private-sector projects should play a bigger role. Start-ups including ispace and orbital debris-removal firm Astroscale have entered the market and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, on top of traditional industrial heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

(Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Additional reporting by Maki Shiraki; Editing by David Dolan and Nick Macfie)

GEOTHERMAL
There’s a Vast Source of Clean Energy Beneath Our Feet. And a Race to Tap It.

Brad Plumer
Tue, August 29, 2023 

Steam rises from the Roosevelt Hot Springs, near the FORGE and Fervo geothermal sites outside of Milford, Utah, on July 31, 2023. 

(Brandon Thibodeaux/The New York Times)


BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — In a sagebrush valley full of wind turbines and solar panels in western Utah, Tim Latimer gazed up at a very different device he believes could be just as powerful for fighting climate change — maybe even more.

It was a drilling rig, of all things, transplanted from the oil fields of North Dakota. But the softly whirring rig wasn’t searching for fossil fuels. It was drilling for heat.

Latimer’s company, Fervo Energy, is part of an ambitious effort to unlock vast amounts of geothermal energy from Earth’s hot interior, a source of renewable power that could help displace fossil fuels that are dangerously warming the planet.

“There’s a virtually unlimited resource down there if we can get at it,” Latimer said. “Geothermal doesn’t use much land, it doesn’t produce emissions, it can complement wind and solar power. Everyone who looks into it gets obsessed with it.”

Traditional geothermal plants, which have existed for decades, work by tapping natural hot water reservoirs underground to power turbines that can generate electricity 24 hours a day. Few sites have the right conditions for this, however, so geothermal only produces 0.4% of America’s electricity.

But hot, dry rocks lie below the surface everywhere on the planet. And by using advanced drilling techniques developed by the oil and gas industry, some experts think it’s possible to tap that larger store of heat and create geothermal energy almost anywhere. The potential is enormous: The Energy Department estimates there’s enough energy in those rocks to power the entire country five times over and has launched a major push to develop technologies to harvest that heat.

Dozens of geothermal companies have emerged with ideas.

Fervo is using fracking techniques — similar to those used for oil and gas — to crack open dry, hot rock and inject water into the fractures, creating artificial geothermal reservoirs. Eavor, a Canadian startup, is building large underground radiators with drilling methods pioneered in Alberta’s oil sands. Others dream of using plasma or energy waves to drill even deeper and tap “superhot” temperatures that could cleanly power thousands of coal-fired power plants by substituting steam for coal.

Still, obstacles to geothermal expansion loom. Investors are wary of the cost and risks of novel geothermal projects. Some worry about water use or earthquakes from drilling. Permitting is difficult. And geothermal gets less federal support than other technologies.

Still, the growing interest in geothermal is driven by the fact that the United States has gotten extraordinarily good at drilling since the 2000s. Innovations like horizontal drilling and magnetic sensing have pushed oil and gas production to record highs, much to the dismay of environmentalists. But these innovations can be adapted for geothermal, where drilling can make up half the cost of projects.

“Everyone knows about cost declines for wind and solar,” said Cindy Taff, who worked at Shell for 36 years before joining Sage Geosystems, a geothermal startup in Houston. “But we also saw steep cost declines for oil and gas drilling during the shale revolution. If we can bring that to geothermal, the growth could be huge.”

States like California are increasingly desperate for clean energy sources that can run at all hours. While wind and solar power are growing fast, they rely on fossil fuels like natural gas for backup when the sun sets and wind fades. Finding a replacement for gas is an acute climate challenge, and geothermal is one of the few plausible options.

“Geothermal has historically been overlooked,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said at a hearing. But with innovation, she added, “the potential is out there, I think, that’s pretty extraordinary.”

Fracking for Clean Energy

Near the town of Milford, Utah, sits the Blundell geothermal plant, surrounded by boiling mud pits, hissing steam vents and the skeletal ruins of a hot springs resort. Built in 1984, the 38-megawatt plant produces enough electricity for about 31,000 homes.

The Blundell plant relies on ancient volcanism and quirks of geology: Just below the surface are hot, naturally porous rocks that allow groundwater to percolate and heat up enough to create steam for generating electricity. But such conditions are rare. In much of the region, the underground hot rock is hard granite, and water can’t flow easily.

Three miles east, two teams are trying to tap that hot granite. One is Utah FORGE, a $220 million research effort funded by the Energy Department. The other is Fervo, a Houston-based startup.

Both use similar methods: First, drill two wells shaped like giant L’s, extending thousands of feet down into hot granite before curving and extending thousands of feet horizontally. Then, use fracking, which involves controlled explosives and high-pressure fluids, to create a series of cracks between the two wells. Finally, inject water into one well, where it will hopefully migrate through the cracks, heat up past 300 degrees Fahrenheit and come out the other well.

This is “enhanced geothermal,” and people have struggled with the engineering difficulties since the 1970s.

But in July, FORGE announced it had successfully sent water between two wells. Two weeks later, Fervo announced its own breakthrough: A 30-day test in Nevada found the process could produce enough heat for electricity. Fervo is now drilling wells for its first 400-megawatt commercial power plant in Utah, next to the FORGE site.

“Those are major accomplishments, in a time frame faster than we expected,” said Lauren Boyd, head of the Energy Department’s Geothermal Technologies Office, which estimates that geothermal could supply 12% of America’s electricity by 2050 if technology improves.

Latimer seemed less surprised. Before founding Fervo in 2017, he worked as a drilling engineer for BHP, an oil and gas firm. There, he became convinced that previous attempts at enhanced geothermal failed because they hadn’t taken advantage of oil and gas innovations like horizontal drilling or fiber-optic sensors.

Fervo didn’t invent many of the tools it uses. In Utah, drilling is conducted by Helmerich & Payne, a major oil and gas contractor that developed a high-tech rig with software and sensors that allow operators to precisely steer drill bits underground. Sixty percent of Fervo’s employees came from oil and gas.

“If we had to invent this stuff ourselves it would have taken years or decades,” Latimer said. “Our big insight was that people in geothermal simply weren’t talking enough to people in oil and gas.”

The hard part now is making enhanced geothermal affordable. The Energy Department wants costs to plummet to $45 per megawatt-hour for widespread deployment. Fervo’s costs are “much higher,” Latimer said, though he thinks repeated drilling can lower them.

Research at FORGE could help. Drilling deeper and hotter can make projects more cost-effective, since more heat means more energy. But existing oil and gas equipment wasn’t designed for temperatures above 350 degrees, so FORGE is testing new tools in hotter rock.

“No one else is willing to take the risks we can take,” said Joseph Moore, a University of Utah geologist who leads FORGE.

Enhanced geothermal faces other challenges, Moore cautioned. Underground geology is complex, and it’s tricky to create fractures that maintain heat and don’t lose too much water over time. Drillers must avoid triggering earthquakes, a problem that plagued geothermal projects in South Korea and Switzerland. FORGE closely monitors its Utah site for seismic activity and has found nothing worrisome.

Permitting is tough. While enhanced geothermal could, in theory, work anywhere, the best resources are on federal land, where regulatory reviews take years and it’s often easier to win permission for oil and gas drilling because of exemptions won by fossil fuel companies.

Still, interest is rising. California is struggling with electricity shortfalls and recently had to extend the life of three old, polluting gas plants. Regulators have ordered utilities to add 1,000 megawatts of electricity from clean sources that can run at all hours to backstop fluctuating wind and solar supplies. One electricity provider, Clean Power Alliance, agreed to buy 33 megawatts from Fervo’s Utah plant.

“If we can find it, we have a pretty big appetite for geothermal,” said Ted Bardacke, Clean Power Alliance’s CEO. “We’re adding more solar every year for daytime and have a huge build-out of batteries to shift power to the evening. But what do we do at night? That’s where geothermal can really help out.”

Underground Radiators and Superhot Rocks

Fervo faces fierce competition for the future of geothermal.

One alternative is a “closed loop” system, which involves drilling sealed pipes into hot, dry rocks and then circulating fluid through the pipes, creating a giant radiator. This avoids the unpredictability of water flowing through underground rock and doesn’t involve fracking, which is banned in some areas. The downside: more complicated drilling.

Eavor, a Calgary-based company, has already tested a closed-loop system in Alberta and is now building its first 65-megawatt plant in Germany.

“If geothermal is ever going to scale, it has to be a repeatable process you can do over and over,” said John Redfern, Eavor’s CEO. “We think we’ve got the best way to do that.”

In Texas, Sage Geosystems is pursuing fracked wells that act as batteries. When there’s surplus electricity on the grid, water gets pumped into the well. In times of need, pressure and heat in the fractures pushes water back up, delivering energy.

The most audacious vision for geothermal is to drill 6 miles or more underground where temperatures exceed 750 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point, water goes supercritical and can hold five to 10 times as much energy as normal steam. If it works, experts say, “superhot” geothermal could provide cheap, abundant clean energy anywhere.

“The ultimate goal should be to get to the superhot stuff,” said Bruce Hill of the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group.

But going that deep requires futuristic tools. GA Drilling, a Slovakian company, is developing plasma torches for drilling at high temperatures. Quaise, a Massachusetts-based startup, wants to use millimeter waves — high-frequency microwaves — to pulverize rock and reach depths of up to 12 miles.

“There are huge engineering challenges,” said Carlos Araque, Quaise’s CEO.

“But,” he added, “imagine if you could drill down next to a coal plant and get steam that’s hot enough to power that plant’s turbines. Replacing coal at thousands of coal plants around the world. That’s the level of geothermal we’re trying to unlock.”

Oil Interest

The U.S. government plays a leading role in nurturing risky new energy technologies. But lawmakers often overlook geothermal. The recent infrastructure bill provided $9.5 billion for clean hydrogen but just $84 million for advanced geothermal.

“It’s been hard for geothermal to fight its way into the conversation,” said Jamie Beard, founder of Project InnerSpace, a Texas-based nonprofit that promotes geothermal.

Beard has spent years trying to get oil and gas companies excited about geothermal. That’s slowly happening: Devon Energy invested $10 million into Fervo, while BP and Chevron are backing Eavor. Nabors, a drilling-service provider, has invested in GA Drilling, Quaise and Sage.

In Oklahoma, a consortium of oil and gas firms led by Baker Hughes recently launched an effort to explore converting abandoned wells into geothermal plants.

“Historically, the upfront costs and risks of geothermal have been challenging,” said Ajit Menon, vice president for geothermal at Baker Hughes. “But we think it’s got a huge role to play. And we have workers with the right skills, the right technology. You can see why it makes sense for us.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

If Harvard Succeeds In Revoking Francesca Gino’s Tenure, It Would Be History Making


John A. Byrne
Tue, August 29, 2023 

Harvard Business School's Francesca Gino

Francesca Gino could be the first person ever to be stripped of tenure at Harvard University

If Harvard Business School is successful in stripping Professor Francesca Gino of tenure, it could be the very first time any faculty member at Harvard University has lost the lifetime protection tenure offers a faculty member.

Harvard’s Office of the President notified Gino that it had begun the process of reviewing her tenure on July 28 over allegations of research misconduct, nine years to the month in which she was promoted to a full professor and granted tenure by Harvard Business School on July 1 of 2014. HBS Dean Srikant Datar had already put Gino on an unpaid administrative leave, banned her from campus, revoked her named professorship, and prevented the professor from publishing on Harvard Business School platforms. Gino’s lawyers, who filed a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, HBS Dean Datar and the authors of the Data Colada blog that initially alleged data fraud in her research, confirmed that the process had begun.

If Gino loses tenure, it would likely be the first time Harvard University has forcibly stripped a tenured faculty member’s position since the 1940s, when the American Association of University Professors formalized rules around tenure. Tenured faculty have long been considered invincible. More often than not, professors who are under pressure from a university administration voluntarily surrender their tenure or simply retire.
GINO COULD BE THE FIRST HARVARD PROFESSOR TO BE STRIPPED OF TENURE EVER

Harvard’s own rules maintain that it has the power to dismiss a tenured professor “only for grave misconduct or neglect of duty,” though it does not define those terms.

The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, noted the challenges of the process. “Gino’s tenure review promises to be a complex process, even without considering the ongoing lawsuit,” according to the Crimson. “Before the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — makes a final determination, the complaint must pass through reviews by two separate bodies. First, a Screening Committee must make an initial assessment of the claims against Gino. If it decides further action is warranted, this first committee makes a recommendation to a Hearing Committee. This second committee, composed of tenured professors, then conducts an investigation and recommends further action to the Corporation, which has final jurisdiction over tenure revocation.”

That review will occur while Gino’s lawsuit moves forward in U.S. District Court in Boston. Gino received the notice from Harvard five days before she filed her Aug. 2 lawsuit alleging defamation, breach of contract and gender discrimination.

AN HBS COMMITTEE FOUND GINO RESPONSIBLE FOR RESEARCH MISCONDUCT

An award-winning behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, Gino was first accused of fabricating data by Data Colada in July of 2021 when authors of the blog approached Harvard Business School with their allegations. According to her lawsuit, Dean Datar negotiated a secret agreement with Data Colada, putting off the publication of their posts until HBS had the opportunity to investigate the claims. After an 18-month-long investigation by a three-person committee of former and current HBS professors, the panel concluded that Gino was responsible for research misconduct. Dean Data accepted the committee’s verdict and suggested punishment on June 13th of this year. Gino has maintained her innocence throughout, raising questions about the fairness of the process as well as the harshness of the penalties imposed on her.

Word of the school’s findings quickly leaked out. A mere three days later, in a June 16th article entitled A Weird Research-Misconduct Scandal About Dishonesty Just Got Weirder, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that one of Gino’s co-authors claimed that Harvard found that one study contained even more fraudulent data than previously revealed and was now asking the journal to note this new information. It was quickly followed within 24 hours by more detailed reporting by Data Colada with the start of a four-part series examining data in four separate studies co-authored by Gino. “We wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud,” the blog authors asserted. “We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens.”

HBS Dean Datar sent an email to the school’s faculty on the Chronicle’s article. “Last Friday,” he wrote, “the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article describing concerns that have been raised about the research of a member of our faculty, Francesca Gino, as well as steps the School is taking with journals and co-authors to correct the scientific record. Other outlets are beginning to carry stories as well. While I know you may have questions, confidentiality is an important consideration in these matters. I realize this runs counter to our longstanding norms of transparency and communication but hope that you can appreciate and understand the reasons for this approach.

DEAN DATAR HAD THE SCHOOL’S WEBSITE MAKE CLEAR THAT GINO WAS PLACED ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE

“As reflected on Professor Gino’s public Faculty & Research page, she is now on an administrative leave. We have been taking steps to ensure that her responsibilities are transitioned-working, for example, with the Doctoral Programs leadership to support PhD students, and with the leaders of our educational programs to adjust teaching assignments. I am grateful to those of you who have stepped up to help. If you have a question about an activity or collaboration and have not yet been contacted, please let me know.

“Research integrity is and must be one of our core values as an institution. I am grateful for your unwavering commitment to advancing knowledge and for being a vital part of our vibrant research communitv.”

Many in the faculty were shocked, if not horrified. They believed Gino was a person of high integrity and would never have manipulated data in a study. In fact, every witness interviewed by the committee that investigated the charges said exactly that.

Harvard has consistently declined public comment on the case, but after Gino file her lawsuit, he wrote another email to the faculty defending his decision to discipline Gino. ” I ultimately accepted the investigation committee’s recommended sanctions, which included immediately placing Professor Gino on administrative leave and correcting the scientific record (a measure incumbent on every responsible academic institution when research misconduct is found),” Datar wrote. “I did so after consulting confidentially with a small number of individuals at HBS and Harvard, including senior faculty members here at the School, as is permitted by our policy. The sanctions reflect a shared belief that the misconduct represented a significant violation of academic integrity and that the evidence not only met but surpassed the applicable preponderance of evidence standard. I shared my conclusions with Professor Gino and, in accordance with our policy and consistent with University practice, began implementing the institutional actions.”

Gino’s lead attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, was little impressed byDatar’s defense. “Dean Datar’s email to faculty leaves many questions unanswered,” he told Poets&Quants. “For example, why was a brand new policy put in place in 2021 for Professor. Gino, and yet it was only now – in 2023 – being shared with faculty?,” he asks. “And furthermore, why were faculty not consulted at all on this new policy? Why specifically was Harvard abandoning its former policy and tailoring a new one specifically for Professor Gino? And why, after they rushed to put it in place, did Harvard fail to follow that policy as stated?”

DON’T MISS: WHAT FRANCESCA GINO’S HARVARD LAWSUIT SAYS ABOUT DATA

 COLADA’S FRAUD ALLEGATIONS or THE ACADEMIC MOB COMES FOR A HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL THOUGHT LEADE


The post If Harvard Succeeds In Revoking Francesca Gino’s Tenure, It Would Be History Making appeared first on Poets&Quants.

Don't Let Wall Street Convince You That VinFast Is Ready For The US Market

Tom McParland
Tue, August 29, 2023 

Image: VinFast



Vietnamese automaker VinFast is attempting to do what few unknown car brands have successfully accomplished: take a solid foothold in the American car market. Wall Street analysts seem bullish on this idea, giving VinFast a market value greater than GM and Ford. This defies logic on several fronts, and I hope someone can explain why a company that seems doomed to fail, can survive and flourish.

I’ll admit that I am not an investment expert, but having run a car buying service for over ten years I’m pretty knowledgeable about what customers are looking for and what products do well versus which ones do not. Based on my experience, I don’t see any outcome where VinFast does not crash and burn, and here is why.

In all my years of talking with thousands of car shoppers, I have found that most people are hesitant to take risks on products unless there is a major overarching aspect of the brand or model that trumps the risk. For example, buyers will roll the dice on an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio because of the performance or someone may take the gamble on a used Range Rover because there is some style and a “brand name” attached to it. But the bulk of your consumers are going to spend their money on something with a fairly predictable outcome.

This is where VinFast is likely to face its biggest hurdle, which is convincing your average buyer to spend anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 (depending on the model) on a car made by a brand they have never heard of, instead of buying something from Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Tesla...the list goes on.

I’ll also address another issue that is not often spoken about. There is a chunk of buyers that have an ingrained distrust of products not made in Japan, Europe, or America. To this day, I still encounter folks who will not buy models from Kia or Hyundai because of the perceived quality of those products, based on experiences or anecdotes from 20 years ago. There are people who refuse to buy Volvo products because they think they are really “Chinese cars.” Now, in an age of globalization and multinational corporate conglomerates whether or not these consumer perspectives are rational or well-founded, isn’t relevant. The fact remains that this psychology is at work and there will be a substantial group of buyers who will automatically reject a Vietnamese car.

I’ve said before that buying a car is not a rational purchase, how a consumer “feels” about a brand is just as relevant, if not more so, than the quality of the product. Consider Cadillac as a case study in which you have an established automaker, that by all accounts made “good” products, yet still struggled with overall sales unless that car is an Escalade.

The EV Market Is Starting To Stall

A larger factor at play here is that VinFast plans on offering exclusively an all-EV lineup, in an electric vehicle market that is showing signs of slowing down. EV inventory is starting to pile up and brands are beginning to throw some money at these cars to find buyers. Big discounts are a sign that the supply and demand situation is no longer favoring the automakers. Dealers are turning away EV inventory due to lack of interest. According to data from Cox Automotive, the EV segment is sitting on a 100 day supply of cars.

In the next few months, VinFast will be attempting to compete in a segment with a major over-inventory problem from Cox Automotive - “U.S. dealers have more than 92,000 EVs in stock, more than three times the number on their lots a year ago.”

When given the choice between a Ford, GM, Mercedes, BMW, or Tesla EV with heavy discounts and an established service network, buyers are going to instead spend the same money on a car that “looks like” a knockoff of those established brands?

All of these variables don’t bode well for VinFast, but perhaps I’m missing something in a world where companies aren’t really “worth” something based on what profit they can return now, but rather than what potential profit they can return in the future by “disrupting” the industry.

The best analogy I can think of in regards to VinFast is if a completely unknown fast-food chain entered the “chicken sandwich wars” several years late and sold a product that would be akin to something you would get in a school cafeteria for the same price as Popeyes and KFC.

Tom McParland is a contributing writer for Jalopnik and runs AutomatchConsulting.com. He takes the hassle out of buying or leasing a car. Got a car buying question? Send it to Tom@AutomatchConsulting.com

Finland counted its bomb shelters and found 50,500 of them

Tue, August 29, 2023 


 Santa Park underground shelter near Rovaniemi

By Anne Kauranen

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland has finished inventorying its existing bomb shelters in a government effort prompted by neighbouring Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, and found it has 50,500 of them, its interior ministry said.

Finland joined the NATO military alliance in April in a historic security policy U-turn but it had kept preparing for the possibility of a conflict with Russia for decades, after fighting back an invasion attempt by the Soviet Union during WW2.

The wary Nordic country made the construction of emergency shelters mandatory under apartment blocks and office buildings as early as in the 1950s, which explains their current high number.

The government's census concluded that the Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has some 50,500 bomb shelters that can fit 4.8 million inhabitants in them in case of an emergency or an attack, the ministry said.

It also found that 91% of the shelters are robust enough to sustain an attack conducted with conventional weapons, while 83% are equipped to also provide shelter from gas emissions or nuclear emergencies.

"At the same time, it must be stated that in a small number of shelters there are faults that prevent them from being put into use within the 72 hours required by law," project manager Ira Pasi of the interior ministry said in a statement.

The shelters are equipped with ventilators, impervious doors, stackable beds and even dry closets, as required by the latest law that dates back to 2011.

During peacetime, some of the underground shelters house swimming pools, sports centres or - as in the very north of the country - a Santa Claus theme park.

The shelters are maintained by each building's owners and the government called for their proper upkeeping.

"Over the decades, Finland has built a civil protection infrastructure worth billions of euros, which is worth taking care of," Pasi said.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Climate change may increase conflict deaths, says IMF

Wed, August 30, 2023 

A Somali herdsman walks with his donkey past a carcass in Garbaharey


By Rachel Savage

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Climate change is likely to worsen conflicts in fragile and war-torn states, resulting in higher death rates and greatly reduced GDP, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report on Wednesday.

The World Bank each year revises a list of countries classed as "fragile and conflict-afflicted states," of which there are currently 39, and 21 are in Africa. Wednesday's report covers all 61 countries that have been on the list since 2006.

It found that climate shocks do not cause conflicts, but they worsen existing unrest and exacerbate other underlying fragilities, such as hunger and poverty.

Deaths from conflict as a share of the population could increase by close to 10% in fragile countries by 2060, the IMF said, adding that climate change could also push an additional 50 million people in fragile states into hunger by 2060.

Even though evidence of climate change is mounting after record temperatures across the world over recent months, the political will to take action has been eroded by economic weakness.

African leaders have said richer countries should provide more money to help them adapt to climate change and transition to greener energy, given that most African countries have produced a relatively tiny share of the emissions that cause global warming.

They are expected to try to reach a unified climate negotiating position at the African Climate Summit from Sept. 4-6, ahead of the COP28 UN climate summit in the United Arab Emirates starting at the end of November.

(Reporting by Rachel Savage; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Negligent manslaughter": Study finds climate change could kill 1 billion mostly poor people

Matthew Rozsa

SALON
Tue, August 29, 2023 

Beijing China Typhoon Aftermath JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images

By the end of the century, nearly 1 billion mostly poor people could die due to climate change, a new study suggests. If climate change reaches 2°C higher than pre-industrial levels, the level of death it will unleash would be catastrophic, according to research published in the scientific journal Energies. If true, this means that even staying within the confines of the Paris climate accord — which pledges 2°C as the upper limit of global warming — will still lead to a humanitarian disaster.

The authors, Joshua Pearce of Western University in Ontario, Canada and Richard Parncutt of University of Graz, in Austria, performed a meta-analysis on studies that examine fatalities caused by climate change impacts. They found that "a future person is killed every time 1000 tons of fossil carbon are burned." The researchers concluded that "if warming reaches or exceeds 2 °C this century, mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans through anthropogenic global warming, which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter."

The scientists emphasized the role of wealthy humans because research shows that they are disproportionately among the so-called "super emitters," or wealthy individuals whose carbon footprint is significantly greater than that of ordinary people. "In 2019, fully 40% of total U.S. emissions were associated with income flows to the highest earning 10% of households," explained the authors of a recent study in PLOS Climate.

Climate change is "a 'new abnormal' and it is now playing out in real time — the impacts of climate change are upon us in the form of unprecedented, dangerous extreme weather events," Dr. Michael E. Mann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Salon in July.

Stellantis wants to move Ram truck production from Michigan to Mexico, UAW leader says


Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press
Tue, August 29, 2023 

The Ram 1500 is currently built at Stellantis' Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, but UAW Vice President Rich Boyer says the company wants to move production of the popular truck to Mexico.

UAW Vice President Rich Boyer didn't hold back when he said Stellantis wants to move production of its popular Ram 1500 pickup from Michigan to Mexico.

“That’s an American product. It’s going to stay here in America,” Boyer told a boisterous crowd at a recent union rally tied to ongoing contract negotiations with Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis.

It's hard to see how any other stance would be welcomed by union members, but a couple of industry watchers said shifting production of the gas-powered Ram 1500 from Sterling Heights Assembly Plant to another location, a point the company hasn't confirmed, wouldn't necessarily have to be the straightforward loss for the union that it appears to be at first blush.

It all depends on negotiations.

The company previously announced that it would build its first electric pickup, the Ram REV 1500, in the United States. If that truck lands at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, as some assume, it would mean a forward-looking product there that the automaker hopes will sell well, although that would likely introduce a fair amount of uncertainty with EV sales still representing a fraction of the market.

The key is that the issue is being discussed within the framework of bargaining as the automaker, which also owns the Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, and the United Auto Workers union try to fashion an agreement to meet a key moment in the monumental transition toward electric vehicles, according to Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Shaiken, an expert in both automotive and Mexican labor issues, noted that Mexico has already been playing an expanded role for automakers. Although he described that as problematic for the union in the long run, he also suggested that this isn’t the worst time for the two sides to be discussing the matter.

“What is good for the UAW at this moment is it allows them to address it in the context of the talks,” Shaiken said.

Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions, highlighted how a product change could play out.

More: UAW members practice picketing: As deadline nears, autoworkers are 'ready to strike'


“Stellantis needs all of the capacity they can find for the Ram pickups. The Saltillo (Truck Assembly Plant) has been used for the larger trucks as well as overflow production of the Ram 1500 for years. With the Ram REV coming next year, Sterling Heights will need space to build the new electric truck,” Fiorani said.

Bargaining leverage could be at play in this discussion, but Fiorani indicated that doesn’t mean the situation has to be a loser for either side.

“On the surface, the move does look like a ploy for negotiations with the UAW, but the shift of older product to Mexico has been done in the past. It does leave the door open for the UAW to gain some product and for Stellantis to address some labor and capacity issues. The potential is there for a win-win situation, but both sides are not currently positioned to take advantage of it,” he said.

Talks have been publicly testy, and the prospect of a strike, although not a foregone conclusion, is alive and well. In fact, union members gave a solid thumbs-up when the UAW asked for strike authorization this month.

But even when two sides seem far apart in contract negotiations, prospects for deal-making are possible, as demonstrated by the recent agreement between the Teamsters and UPS.

Sterling Heights Assembly Plant produces Stellantis' popular Ram 1500 pickup.

Shaiken said the fate of the idled Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois could play a role under one scenario, if, for instance, Stellantis were to agree to move the gas-powered truck there with the electric truck going to Sterling Heights. It would take “a major push” to do something like that, but it would also address an outstanding issue, Shaiken said.

The company could see a move like that as less costly than the prospect of a strike, he said.

A major perceived disadvantage for workers about trading production of a proven gas-powered vehicle for a new EV would be the size of the workforce.

The prospect that fewer workers will be needed to produce EVs has been a major theme in talking about the transition, although a recent study highlighted by Axios suggested the opposite could be true. Nonetheless, Shaiken said one way the union could address concerns about the need for fewer workers would be to bargain to bring more supplier work into the assembly process, meaning the work would be done by UAW members under the master agreement.

That would be a tough sell, but Shaiken said such things are possible in negotiations.

Whether Stellantis would be open to such scenarios isn’t clear, although the company did highlight the role of the current negotiations in its decision-making.

“Product allocation for our U.S. plants will depend on the outcome of these negotiations as well as a plant’s ability to meet specific performance metrics including improving quality, reducing absenteeism and addressing overall cost. As these decisions are fluid and part of the discussions at the bargaining table, we will not comment further,” according to Stellantis spokeswoman Jodi Tinson.

More: 'We're together in red': UAW members bring the heat to Solidarity Sunday rally

Moving production to Mexico, however, raises a number of issues and fears for U.S. workers.

When he started researching manufacturing in Mexico years ago, Shaiken said he learned that his assumptions about quality and productivity were off target and that in fact both can be higher there than in the United States, partly because plants and machinery are often newer there.

However, pairing those aspects with wages that are a fraction of what U.S. workers make “has resulted in a license to print money for the automakers because these plants have been very successful,” Shaiken said.

That presents a challenge to the UAW. It also highlights the tensions that Boyer gave voice to at the union rally on Aug. 20 in Warren when he said Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares doesn’t care about “the American autoworker,” using a less polite phrasing for what he said was Tavares’ level of concern.

The Saltillo Truck Assembly Plant in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila currently produces the older version of the Ram 1500 as well as the brand’s heavy duty trucks. The facility, which has more than 4,000 employees, began production in 1995 and built its 4 millionth vehicle, a Ram 2500 Laramie, in 2019, according to the company’s website.

Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, known as SHAP, with more than 5,300 workers, was built as a jet engine plant in 1953 before it shifted to automobile production in the 1980s.

In July 2016, Stellantis predecessor Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced it would spend $1.49 billion to retool the plant to produce what was then the next-generation Ram 1500 pickup. Mayor Michael Taylor called it the “largest one-time corporate investment in the city’s history,” according to Free Press reporting at the time. That investment came with a tax break “valued at $11.38 million over a 15-year period to help secure the automaker's commitment” and millions of dollars in other potential incentives, according to Free Press reporting.

That plan, part of a larger shift of products, involved changes at multiple plants and was credited with saving jobs in Sterling Heights.

Taylor, on Friday, said he’s aware of the news from Boyer’s announcement, but he hasn’t had any direct conversations with the company or union about the issue. He said he hopes it’s just negotiations and posturing and not a “real serious threat.”

Taylor noted the company invested a lot of money at SHAP, and he said he believes it’s one of the company’s better plants. It also has faced its share of uncertainty in the past, being slated for closure around the time of the Chrysler bankruptcy but seeing an outpouring of support from political leaders at many levels at the time.

“The Ram 1500 is one of the most popular vehicles on the road. Having the (internal combustion engine truck) produced in Sterling Heights is great for Sterling Heights and the surrounding areas, and I think good for Stellantis as well,” he said, noting that “time will tell” on whether EVs become as popular as internal combustion engine vehicles.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW leader: Stellantis wants to move Ram truck production to Mexico