Commentary on personal, local, national, and international events. Covering everything from politics, economics, environment and technology. Mostly expressing my thoughts on the everyday absurdity of life on this spacecraft Earth.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Cannabis electric car to be made in Canada
Last Updated: Monday, August 23, 2010 4:52 PM ET Comments345Recommend255 By Emily Chung, CBC News The Kestrel electric car will have room for a driver and three passengers and have a top speed of 90 kilometres an hour. (Motive Industries Inc.)An electric car made of hemp is being developed by a group of Canadian companies in collaboration with an Alberta Crown corporation. The Kestrel will be prototyped and tested later in August by Calgary-based Motive Industries Inc., a vehicle development firm focused on advanced materials and technologies, the company announced. The compact car, which will hold a driver and up to three passengers, will have a top speed of 90 kilometres per hour and a range of 40 to 160 kilometres before needing to be recharged, depending on the type of battery, the company said in an email to CBC News Monday. It will be powered by a motor made by Boucherville, Que.-based TM4 Electrodynamic Systems, said Motive Industries president Nathan Armstrong. 'As a structural material, hemp is about the best.'— Nathan Armstrong, Motive Industries Inc. The car's body will be made of an impact-resistant composite material produced from mats of hemp, a plant from the cannabis family. The material is being supplied by Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures, a provincial Crown corporation that provides technical services and funding to help commercialize new technologies. The hemp is being grown in Vegreville, Alta. The Kestrel is one of five electric vehicles being developed by Project Eve, an automotive industry collaboration founded by Motive and Toronto Electric, an Ontario material handling and electric motor company, to boost the production of electric vehicles and electric vehicle components in Canada. Colleges to help build cars The Kestrel cars will be built with the help of polytechnic schools in Alberta, Quebec and Toronto, and the first 20 cars are scheduled to be delivered next year to EnMax, a Calgary-based energy distribution, supply and service company that is taking part in Project Eve. Industrial hemp is bred to produce very little THC, the active compound in marijuana. (Chet Brokaw/Associated Press) Hemp Hemp is the common name for the cannabis plant, which has fibrous roots, stalks and stems useful for producing a variety of products and seeds that are edible. The flowers, buds and leaves of some strains are used to produce drugs such as marijuana and hashish because they contain a psychoactive compound called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), but industrial hemp is bred to produce very little THC. Automotive pioneer Henry Ford first built a car made of hemp fibre and resin more than half a century ago. "It's not an original idea," Armstrong said, but one that wasn't developed much further as car manufacturers favoured other materials, such as steel, in subsequent decades. However, fibreglass and carbon fibre-based composites have gained popularity as materials for the body of racecars because they are strong, but light. Such composite materials consist of pieces or fibres of a hard reinforcement material, such as glass or carbon fibre, surrounded and supported by a matrix of a material such as plastic. Producing composites from glass or carbon fibre requires intense heating in furnaces and multiple chemical processes, Armstrong said, making it very energy intensive, In contrast, plant-based fibres grow in a field using the energy of the sun. "As a structural material, hemp is about the best," Armstrong said, as it has about twice the strength of other plant fibres. It doesn't require much water or pesticide use, and grows well in Canada, providing a high yield per hectare. Market advantage "Plus, it's illegal to grow it in the U.S., so it actually gives Canada a bit of a market advantage," Armstrong added. The U.S. does allow the import of processed hemp. ATlF had been working for some time on hemp-based composite materials with the hardness of glass and had been seeking a commercial use. Motive Industries had joined forces with Toronto Electric, a material-handling and electric motor company, to found Project Eve and decided to give the material a try. The car will take batteries with a capacity ranging from 4.5 to 17.3 kilowatt hours of energy. The vehicle's full design will be released after the September EV 2010 VÉ Conference and Trade Show in Vancouver.
Thirty thousand people turned out in East Point on Wednesday seeking applications for government-subsidized housing, and their confusion and frustration, combined with the summer heat, led to a chaotic mob scene that left 62 people injured.
At the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, emergency vehicles passed each other, transporting 20 people to hospitals. Medical and police command posts were set up on scene. East Point police wore riot gear. Officers from four other agencies supported them. Yet no arrests were made.
All of this resulted from people attempting to obtain Section 8 housing applications and, against long odds, later securing vouchers for affordable residences. Some waited in line for two days for the applications.
Renee Gray, a single mother holding her one-year-old daughter, Marion, came looking for a housing break and nearly got trampled, forcing her to run from the crowd and into the street.
"It could have been better organized," said Gray, a customer service employee. "A lot of adults lost focus.”
Jacquelyn Cuffie, 50, of Duluth, used a walker to cross the parking lot and navigate the huge gathering, determined to improve her living situation. It didn't matter how hot or crowded it got.
“It’s difficult to pay [the rent] with a disability check,” Cuffie said.
Offering applications for the first time since 2002, East Point Housing Authority officials had triple the crowd they anticipated, and one that was three-fourths of the 40,000 population of the south Fulton city. Things got out of hand when people started cutting into lines and authorities attempted to move groups to different areas.
Sgt. Cliff Chandler, East Point Police Department spokesman, said one flash point occurred early on. Authorities originally had lined up people to come into the front entrance of the Central Station Sports Cafe and receive the applications. However, when they saw the sheer number of people, the officials set up kiosks around the parking lot to hand out the applications, Chandler said.
Felecia McGhee, who came in search of her own Section 8 assistance, saw two small children trampled when people rushed the building that held the applications. When a group of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.
People collapsed in the heat. Emergency personnel drove up in a pickup truck and handed out bottled water. People were carried off on stretchers. A baby went into a seizure and was taken to a hospital.
Thaddeus Brookins of Atlanta dropped off his mother, Betty, a part-time furniture store employee, into the middle of the shopping center mayhem. He didn't like what he saw.
“It was terrible,” Thaddeus Brookins said. “Lot of people. People pushing people, knocking people over. People getting hurt.”
Wednesday's deluge of people seeking low-income vouchers in East Point demonstrated just how desperate the need for affordable housing has become in metro Atlanta, officials said. Some 15,000 Georgians currently are accommodated with Section 8 housing, with thousands more on waiting lists. Housing openings have been difficult to find anywhere, including rural areas.
"East Point, to me, is indicative of the problem," said Dennis Williams, a Georgia Department of Community affairs assistant commissioner. "It just goes to show you the situation is pretty dire."
At the same time the recession has pushed many middle-class families out of their homes, the closure of several large public housing projects -- Grady, Bowen and Capital Homes -- during the last decade has left many lower-income families with few housing options as well, elevating vouchers to something akin to lottery winnings. The demand has overwhelmed many municipalities and public entities that administer the Section 8 programs.
A check of the 16 metro Atlanta housing authorities that administer Section 8 programs found the overwhelming majority had closed their waiting lists. In one instance, the waiting list at Marietta Housing Authority has been closed since September 2008.
"There's more people demanding units at a lower-income level. The demands coming in from people who are losing their jobs and potentially having to leave their homes whether they move all the way to Section 8 or not, it's going to create demand, " said Jim Skinner, a planner in the research division of the Atlanta Regional Commission. "That's just the bottom line and that perhaps explains what happened in East Point."
When the crowd thinned out at the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, the parking lot was a sprawling mess of discarded water bottles, crushed soda cans and cigarette packs.
At an ensuing news conference, East Point officials tried to describe the day as a success, an assessment that was roundly challenged by those who had witnessed or been involved in the unruly scene.
Kim Lemish, East Point Housing Authority executive director, said the Section 8 housing applications were made available by the city for the first time in eight years because a waiting list had been depleted.
There was concern a similar overcrowded scene could occur Thursday morning when East Point began accepting the completed applications.
No one, however, was lining up at the housing authority in advance, by design. Late Wednesday, police had barricaded the housing authority and erected signs that declared "no loitering."
Staff writers Marcus K. Garner, Rhonda Cook and Mike Morriss contributed to this article.
Foreclosure Crisis Spreads Across U.S.; Idaho Defaults Mount
By Dan Levy - Aug 12, 2010 9:23 AM MT
Nan Holmes, a title officer who reviews real estate documents, at her home in Boise, Idaho. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
Nan Holmes, a title officer who reviews real estate documents at her home in Boise, Idaho. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
A sign stands outside a foreclosed home that is for sale in the Charter Pointe subdivision of Boise, Idaho. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
A notice sits above the lock of a home that is under foreclosure and for sale in the Charter Pointe subdivision of Boise, Idaho. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
Michael Ferguson, chief economist for the state of Idaho, speaks during an interview in Boise, Idaho Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
Cows from a nearby dairy farm sit in pens near homes in Charter Pointe, a development where more than half ot the homes listed for sale are bank-owned or are worth less than their mortgage, in Boise, Idaho. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
Nan Holmes, a senior escrow officer at a title insurer, says her insider’s view of the local market gave her the confidence three years ago to pay $370,000 for a new home in Boise, Idaho. She got a price she liked from the builder and 100 percent bank financing.
That was before the bottom fell out of the housing market in California, Nevada and Florida as borrowers with bad credit began defaulting in record numbers, setting off a recession. Holmes, who had earned $150,000 a year when real estate was booming, saw her compensation shrink by half when business cooled, forcing her to dip into savings and sell jewelry. She stopped paying the mortgage in April and has put the house on the market for $145,000 less than she owes the bank.
“How long will it take for the market to turn so I can just break even?” Holmes, 55, said as she sat in her house in Boise’s tree-lined Collister neighborhood, four miles (6.4 kilometers) from the state capitol.
Home foreclosures are climbing in the Northwest and Midwest, areas that had earlier dodged the worst of the mortgage crisis, according to real estate data firm RealtyTrac Inc. With 14.6 million Americans out of work and consumer spending declining, further weakness in housing could push the economy back into recession, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Aug. 1.
Foreclosure rates in Utah, Idaho, Illinois and Colorado rose in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, and rank among the 10 highest in the country. The number of homes seized by lenders at least doubled in 19 states and more than tripled in seven of them, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac.
Later in Cycle
“The housing downturn started late in the Northwest and now it’s ending late,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Idaho, Oregon and Washington lagged behind the national cycle and will suffer declines after other areas stabilize, he said.
New defaults are declining and appear to have bottomed in states where the crisis began, falling 43 percent in California, 37 percent in Florida and 27 percent in Nevada in the second quarter from a year earlier, RealtyTrac’s data show.
“The worst is over, but it’s going to be a long road ahead,” said economist Steven Frable at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts.
July Data
Last month, 325,229 U.S. properties got a notice of default, auction or bank repossession, RealtyTrac said today in a report. While that’s an increase of 4 percent from June, the number was down almost 10 percent from a year earlier. One in 397 households received a filing. Lenders seized 92,858 properties in July, the second-highest monthly tally since RealtyTrac began records in January 2005.
“The numbers are exploding due to unemployment and economic displacement,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of marketing at RealtyTrac. “We will see them get a lot worse unless we see some job creation.”
Initial jobless claims rose last week by 2,000 to 484,000, the highest in six months, Labor Department figures showed today. Unemployment is near a 27-year high at 9.5 percent. More than 4.4 million people are collecting unemployment benefits and almost 5.3 million are getting emergency and extended payments. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress on July 21 the outlook is “unusually uncertain.”
Chicago Jobs Disappear
Chicago lost 76,000 jobs in the year through June, the most in any metropolitan area tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Denver lost 18,900, Detroit 18,700. Employment dropped 4.1 percent in Grand Junction, Colorado, and 2.7 percent in Bend, Oregon, the data show.
Home seizures soared 822 percent in Idaho in the second quarter, and the state had the seventh-highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac. Boise’s median house price was $140,100 in the quarter, down 34 percent from the peak $212,800 in 2007, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.
The metropolitan area, home to a third of Idaho’s 1.54 million residents, has been pummeled by housing-related construction and retail job losses, as well as layoffs at chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. and grocer Albertsons, said Michael Ferguson, the state’s chief economist.
Idaho’s jobless rate was 8.8 percent in July, up from 8.2 percent a year earlier and 2.9 percent in July 2007.
“This is an off-the-chart, extreme financial event,” Ferguson said. “I wasn’t around for the Depression, but in the last half century there has been nothing like this.”
Cows and Corn
In Charter Pointe, a development built on corn fields 11 miles from downtown, more than half of the homes listed for sale are bank-owned or “underwater,” meaning the property is worth less than the mortgage. Dairy cows wander in a nearby pen, and baling machines grind into the night.
“The neighbors aren’t used to living next to farming operations with manure and flies,” said Richard Murgoitio, who sold 70 acres to Hubble Homes Inc. in 2001 and would like to sell his remaining land to builders. “We’re hoping they take us all out, if the economy ever turns around.”
Micron, founded in Boise in 1978 with early investors including the late potato mogul J.R. Simplot, cut local production and 1,500 jobs last year as chip prices fell. The company has more than 5,000 full-time workers in the area, said Daniel Francisco, a Micron spokesman. It employed twice that number as recently as 2001, Ferguson said.
Budget Cuts
Albertsons cut its local payroll following a 2006 buyout by companies including Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu Inc. and private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP of New York. The acquisition ended seven decades of Boise ownership for the grocery chain and its plans for as many as 1,000 new hires, the state economist said.
Idaho lost 6.9 percent of its jobs from 2008 through 2009, compared with the 4.9 percent U.S. average, and its timber industry payrolls fell 38 percent, according to IHS Global.
Government workers and services haven’t been spared. The state budget, which peaked at $3 billion in 2008, dropped by a fifth to $2.38 billion in the fiscal 2011 year that began July 1. More than 200 positions were cut and furloughs imposed in agencies including health and welfare, tax collection and the attorney general’s office, Ferguson said.
The value of residential transactions in Ada County, which includes Boise, declined 62 percent in June from the peak four years earlier, multiple listings data show. Boise had the highest metro foreclosure rate outside California, Florida, Nevada or Arizona in the first six months of the year, RealtyTrac said.
Short Sale Sought
Holmes said her company, TitleOne Corp., is down to 80 employees from a high of 175 in 2007. Her lender, Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, North Carolina, took the first step toward foreclosure in July.
Holmes, a divorced mother of two, put her house on the market in June and has applied for a federal program that offers incentives to loan servicers, investors and homeowners to complete short sales, in which the bank accepts less than what it is owed on the mortgage.
She’s asking $225,000 and hasn’t had an offer. A third of real estate listings in her area are distressed properties, with seven months of inventory on the market in Boise at her price.
“I was never raised to be in this position,” Holmes said, showing pictures of her 6-year-old granddaughter, as well as the oversize tub in her master bathroom. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”
PHILADELPHIA — A bank has foreclosed on a $615,000 condominium owned by the head of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, who earned $350,000 last year leading the nation's fourth-largest public-housing agency.
Carl R. Greene, PHA's executive director, bought the three-bedroom, 2,100-square-foot condo in the upscale Naval Square development in 2007. He put down $215,000 in cash and took out a $400,000 mortgage, city records show.
Greene, 53, stopped making payments on or around April 1, and three months later owed more than $7,500 in missed payments and late fees, according to the bank's July 27 lawsuit.
