Friday, 03 Oct 2003

I'll Take Mongolia for $1,000, Alex

Increased Mining in Mongolia Could Threaten Environment

Say "Mongolia" and most people think of yaks and yurts -- that is, if they think of anything. But these days, mining companies have a very different image of Mongolia: an untapped source of gold, copper, and other natural resources that can be exploited on the cheap and sold to neighboring China. In the last two years, mining exploration has taken off in Mongolia, with the number of prospecting licenses tripling to 3,000 and the number of production licenses skyrocketing from a few dozen to about 650. "I see nothing but good in Mongolia's future," said Victor Collinge of Cameco, a Canadian mining company. But environmentalists see something else: potential contamination from toxic mine byproducts and the threat of protected land being opened to mining interests.

Cheap Tricks I

Toyota Says Hybrids Can Be Inexpensive to Manufacture

Defying conventional wisdom, Toyota unveiled its new hybrid-car production site in Toyota City, Japan, yesterday and sent a clear message to other automakers: Gas-electric hybrids can be manufactured inexpensively. Such cars have traditionally been thought of as too costly to be practical, and Toyota and Honda, the only two companies to mass-produce them, were suspected by other manufacturers of selling the cars at a loss. Now, though, Toyota has significantly reduced the cost of making its hybrid Prius by producing it on the same assembly line used to make conventional sedans. (One Prius rolls off the line every minute, compared to every eight or 10 minutes in the past.) By Sept. 24, more than 10,000 new-model Priuses had been ordered in the U.S., even though the cars won't go on sale in the country until later this month.

Cheap Tricks II

New Solar Panels Would Be Inefficient -- and Inexpensive

Usually, inefficient energy sources are an environmentalist's worse nightmare -- but the opposite might be the case for a new type of solar cell. True, the new cells would only capture about 10 percent of the sun's energy (roughly half of what conventional solar cells capture), but they would be able to do so at a fraction of the price, making them far more marketable. The new cells are being developed by STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest maker of semiconductors, which expects to have a prototype ready by the end of next year. Today's solar cells are made from expensive silicon; STMicroelectronics plans to make theirs using plastics and other cheap materials to bring down the price of producing energy from roughly $4 per watt to as little as $0.20, making them competitive with fossil fuels.

Run Out on a Rail

Senate Rejects White House Proposal to Restructure Amtrak

A White House plan to restructure Amtrak was, uh, derailed yesterday by nearly unanimous bipartisan opposition in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The six-year Amtrak reauthorization bill proposed ending federal operating subsidies for the passenger rail service, opening some routes to private operators, and turning the Washington-to-Boston service area over to the states. Committee members called it an ill-disguised effort to dismantle the beleaguered rail system and leave states holding the financial bag. Even one of the only champions of the plan, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), acknowledged that "there are obvious omissions in it, notably how much restructuring will cost, and some aspects of the plan may not be entirely workable." Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) was far blunter: "I fear this approach will be the end of Amtrak as a national system."

The Kids Are Alright

Michigan Creates Volunteer Corps to Monitor Waterways

What do you do if you're a budget-strapped state with no money to pay for water-quality monitoring? Sign up the seventh graders, of course. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) signed an executive order this week to create the Clean Water Corps, which will enlist volunteers, some of them students, to help the state's Department of Environmental Quality monitor the status of lakes, rivers, and streams. "The DEQ simply lacks the resources to go it alone," said department chief Steven Chester. Cyndi Roper, director of the Michigan environmental organization Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund, sees the corps as a mixed blessing. "It's always good to get citizens involved in monitoring and protecting local waterways," she said -- but not at the expense of making funds for water protection a state priority.